Tone-glottal coarticulation in a complex tone language.

Abstract

A majority of the research on coarticulation has focused on consonant and vowel timing, but work on the coarticulation of tone or phonation‐type contrasts has received relatively less attention until recently [Brunelle (2003); Miller (2007); Peng (1997); Silverman (1997); Xu (1994); (1997); (1998); (1999); (2004); (2005); Xu et al. (2006); Xu and Liu (2006); Xu and Sun (2002); Xu and Wang (2001)]. The present work investigates the coarticulatory timing relationships between the nine tonal contrasts and three laryngeal contrasts (creak, glottal closure, and breathiness) of Itunyoso Trique [DiCanio (2008)]. Acoustic and electroglottographic (EGG) data from Trique were collected, comparing the realization of the tones in the different laryngeal conditions. While creaky phonation induces an equivalent pitch lowering for a variety of tones, breathy phonation induces pitch lowering in an asymmetrical fashion where higher tones have a greater pitch decrease than lower tones. These particular effects are not predictable from a perceptually‐driven model of coarticulation, but accord well with the body‐cover model of vocal‐fold vibration [Titze (1994); Story & Titze (2003)]. The timing of non‐modal phonation in Itunyoso Trique reflects a language‐specific coarticulation strategy, but the observed pitch perturbation effects are best‐explained with a speaker‐oriented model of coarticulation.