The valves of the throat and their functioning in tone, vocal register and stress: laryngoscopic case studies

Abstract

The standard method of describing phonation for tone, vocal register, stress and other linguistic categories relies on the ‘continuum hypothesis’ that linguistic sounds are produced by means of glottal states determined by the aperture between the arytenoid cartilages, the endpoints of the voiceless–voiced continuum being ‘open glottis’ and ‘closed glottis’. This paper takes a different view, pointing out that many languages make use of a number of valves, and that these valves are not articulations on a glottal continuum but represent a synergistic and hierarchical system of laryngeal articulations. These valves constitute a principal source of phonological contrast, with an influence on how oral articulatory events are characterised.