Pulmonic control, nasal venting, and aspiration in Khoisan languages

Abstract

It is generally accepted in the descriptive phonetic literature that most variations in pulmonic pressure observed during the production of speeech are passive reactions to changing glottal and supra-glottal resistance (Ladefoged 1968, Ohala et al. 1979, Rothenberg 1968). Active short-term positive changes in lung volume are only found with heavily stressed syllables (Ladefoged 1968, Ohala et al. 1979 ), and in rare cases with with particular consonants such as LuGanda geminates (Ladefoged 1971), Korean fortis stops (but see Rothenberg 1968) and possibly with certain Jingpho segments (Ladefoged 1968). It is assumed therefore that pulmonic speech sounds are normally produced against a constant mean background pressure by movement of air that occurs with decreasing volume of the lungs (Ladefoged 1967, 1968) and with constant respiratory muscle innervation (Rothenberg 1968). The two reported exceptions to this are the pulmonic suction [1] found in the ritual language Damin (Catford 1977) and the recently reported two ingressive fricatives in an ideolect of a Tsou dialect (an Austronesian language) (Fuller 1990). In all other cases, pulmonic initiation is pressure.