Head Voice Research Articles

Loss of head voice function in long-standing Hashimoto’s thyroiditis

Loss of head voice function in long-standing Hashimoto’s thyroiditis

Effect of years of voice training on chest and head register tongue shape variability

The transition between head and chest registers in operatic singing has been linked to adjustments in the larynx [Henrich, 2006, LPV 31], vocal tract length [Tokuda et al., 2010, JASA 127], and resonance frequencies [Echternach et al., 2011, JASA 129]. Research on supralaryngeal articulator differences, specifically midsagittal tongue shape differences, during this transition is limited. Our previous case study showed a higher tongue dorsum in head voice for low and mid vowels compared to chest voice [Bengtson et al., 2023, CAA 51]. The current study with ten participants (8 female, 1 non-binary, 1 male, aged 19–23) further explores this and the effect of the years of vocal training. Participants were recorded performing a chromatic scale through their register transition, followed by a whole-tone scale in each register, with both tasks repeated twice on each of seven vowels (/a, e, o, ɚ, i, u, y/). The hypothesis is that vowel-dependent tongue adjustments would be observed, with more experienced singers displaying smaller differences between registers. Tongue shapes were traced using DeepEdge, and target frames were extracted [Chen et al., 2020, ISSP 2020]. Preliminary analysis indicates that the tongue dorsum is lower for chest voice and for participants with more years of voice training.

Involvee causatives in Turkish

In this study, we investigate a morphologically but not semantically causative construction in Turkish, which we label ‘involvee causative’ (InvC). In contrast to regular causative, the external argument in InvCs is not interpreted as an agent or causer but as merely being involved in or experiencing the event. Additionally, InvCs also differ from regular causatives in not licensing agent-oriented adverbs, instrument phrases and passivization. In previous research, failure of these diagnostics to apply has been taken as evidence for an unaccusative structure. However, we argue against such an analysis for InvCs and show that the latter contain a thematic Voice head. The above diagnostics, we conclude, are sensitive not only to the syntactic status of the external argument but also to its semantic properties, and are licensed only if the argument receives an agentive interpretation.

Quantitative analysis of choir sound integration and practical application of harmonic theory

Abstract Chorus is a polyphonic vocal art. Sound fusion and harmony are an important basis for measuring the quality of the chorus. How to train many chorus members into fusion, harmony and unity of acoustics is the unremitting pursuit of chorus conductors and chorus members. In this paper, after studying the physical properties of sound and the physiological mechanism of its generation, we use the spectrum analysis method based on acoustic theory to quantify the sound fusion of the choir and introduce the base-2FFT algorithm extracted by time to improve the spectrum analysis method, so as to achieve the audio signal identification and noise reduction of the sound fusion. The analysis of the mixed chorus “The Good Place of the Wujin Sand Sea” shows that the chorus members sang by using the method of head voice straight voice, which can do their best to eliminate each person’s singing individuality and timbral characteristics, and integrate the individual timbre into the collective, and sang with a smooth breath, with the amplitude in the range of [-40,40]. In contrast, the choristers sang using the solo state method, the choristers retained their personalities in their singing, did not integrate their colours into the collective, and the sound between the voices was not sufficiently balanced in their singing, with amplitude values between [-80,80]. The use of spectral visualisation allows conductors to control musical elements more accurately in the professional practice of rehearsing choral works.

Vocal Demands of Musical Theatre Rehearsals: A Dosimetry Study

To investigate singers' vocal load by documenting three types of vocal doses (time, cycle, and distance doses) and sound pressure levels during the four phases of rehearsal and how the vocal doses vary between singers across rehearsals in the musical Nine, written by Maury Yeston. Five student-singers participating in the musical Nine gave informed consent to participate in the study. All five participants were assigned female at birth and female-identifying individuals. They attached a KayPENTAX APM 3300 dosimeter sensor to their lower neck and wore the accelerometer during four three-hour rehearsals throughout the rehearsal process (the music learning phase, the choreography learning phase, the blocking learning phase, and the dress rehearsal) of the musical. The dosimeter records neck vibrations at a rate of 20 samples per second. but it does not record linguistic content. A dosimetric analysis of five student singers identified variability in voice production throughout the rehearsal process. According to the dosimetry findings, singers employed extensive low-frequency voicing below the first passaggio, with belting and mixed vocal strategies as the predominant stylistic choices when performing in Nine. Additionally, the singers used an occasional head voice effect at specific moments. The roles of Carla, Saraghina, La Fleur, and Ensemble One and Two required specific vocal ranges due to the musical score. Researchers have yet to establish a safe baseline vocal dose for singers. The vocal dose is affected by many factors, such as duration of phonation, frequency range, SPL, and styles of vocalism required by the score. Louder and heavier vocalization produces larger distance doses, representing the cumulative load placed on vibrating tissue. The cycle dose, distance dose, and SPL reported in this study varied within and between singers. The phonation density graphs show this variability and the low tessitura required by the score. Time doses ranged from 4% to 7% of rehearsal time; this short dose suggests that the rehearsals provided healthy conditions for the successful rehearsal process with efficient attention to the vocalization of a score that requires heavy vocal styles, including belting. While the rehearsal pace was not alarming, the demands of the score alone may prove to be much greater than the vocal dose reported through the rehearsal. Further studies are needed to establish the overall dose of each Broadway role to serve as parameters for vocal pacing and voice care.

A Comparative Study on the Causative Alternation in Chinese and Japanese

This paper introduces the causative and anti-causative alternation in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese respectively. Firstly, the verbs which are allowed to appear in the causative alternation in Mandarin Chinese and Japanese are stable, although they are realized in different manners. In Japanese, the causative alternation is realized through the morpheme markings either from transitivization or intransitivization; in Mandarin Chinese, the resultative verb compounding is usually applicable in the causative alternation, as well as the very rare mono-morphemic verbs, as widely discussed in existing literature. Secondly, the derivational and non-derivational controversy of the causative alternation is introduced, and this paper adopts a non-direct-derivation-relation between the causative and anti-causative alternants in both languages, both of which are derived from a common base: Cause[√Root+Theme]. The [√Root+Theme] base expresses a resultant state, and the Cause predicate introduces a causal relation between a causing event and a resultant state. They only differ in the presence or absence of a Voice projection, which is added in the causative alternant, but lacks in the anti-causative alternant. The function of the eventive head Voice is to introduce an external argument into the causative alternant. The typology of the causative alternation applies in both Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, although the morphemic inflectional properties vary across languages.

On the distribution and interpretation of voice in Greek anticausatives.

This paper provides experimental evidence in support of the view that Greek does not have three productive morphological classes of anticausative verbs, but only two: the class of verbs that bear non-active voice morphology and the class of verbs that are morphologically active. Across two experiments, native Greek speakers are found to prefer for each anticausative verb either non-active or active voice morphological marking, in the presence or absence of explicit contextual information. It is also shown experimentally that native speakers prefer an interpretation that involves a specific cause for all anticausatives, especially when the existence of such a cause is favored by the contextual setting. Our empirical findings are consistent with the view that the Voice Phrase that is realized as non-active voice morphology in Greek anticausatives is expletive. From a theoretical perspective, we analyze the expletiveness of this Voice projection as the result of semantic redundancy: the Voice head of Greek anticausatives combines with a v head that encodes a redundant cause meaning component and is, therefore, interpreted merely as introducing an identity function.

Functional Heads and Eventive Nominals: The Basque Perspective

This article shows that Basque has a few suffixes (-era, -keta, -pen) which give rise to the type of eventive nominals described in the literature (Grimshaw; Picallo; Alexiadou, Functional Structure). Nominals headed by these suffixes are passive-like (cf. Alexiadou, Functional Structure), obligatorily take genitive arguments and are mostly restricted to unaccusative and transitive predicates, but have a very limited eventive reading: they do not take adverbial modification (aspectual modification is realised through adjectives) and adpositional phrases show up with the functional linker -ko, typical of nominal structures (de Rijk, “Basque Hospitality”). A peculiar feature of Basque is that the external argument has genitive case, just like the internal argument; this double genitive structure suggests that Basque has a neutralised case system at the nominal level. On the other hand, Basque has nominalised clauses which admit all kinds of adverbial and PP modification, as well as regular subject case-marking (be it ergative or absolutive); this type of nominalised clauses may have an eventive reading. I propose that Basque nominalised clauses have the structure DP-TP-(NegP)-AspP-VoiceP-vP-root. For derived event nominals, I claim that Basque only projects up to VoiceP, with the nominaliser selecting a Voice head with a [-external argument] feature (Alexiadou, “Ergativity”). The selection of an unsaturated VoiceP forces the external argument of the root to be projected at the nominal level (Bruening): DP-PossP-NumP-ClassP-nP[ext. argument]-Voice[-ext. arg.]P-vP-Root. Basque grammar resorts to structural case-checking by the head Possesor (de Wit), which attracts all the DPs in its c-commanding domain and creates a multiple-specifier configuration of the kind defended in Richards. The rest of the features displayed by derived event nominals follow from the limited number of verbal functional projections available.

Do so replacement and the argument/adjunct distinction in Merge-based syntax

This study provides a novel look at do so replacement within the framework of the Bare Phrase Structure theory. Unlike the previous view of do so as a monolithic VP anaphor, I argue that do so is better analyzed as do and so, separately substituting for a functional Voice head and VP, respectively. This argument is supported by the observation of VP adverbs, the locative/directional interpretation of PPs, and the analysis of voice mismatch. The study consequently presents a more refined model of VP than the previous X-bar theoretic model, as it fulfills the structural requirement between complements and adjuncts.

In the Middle of Korean Middles

This paper proposes a Distributed Morphology account of middle sentences in Korean. In the middle of Korean middles lie the functional head Voice bearing [-ACT] and the generic operator GEN, interacting with each other to produce the morphosyntactic and semantic properties of Korean middles. VoiceSUB[-ACT]/SUB is responsible for the demotion of an external argument of eventive verbs, characteristic of middle sentences where a theme occupies the grammatical subject position. This functional head also figures prominently in passives, where the same range of verbalizing suffixes of middle sentences also appear. This functional head is responsible for the external argument demotion and the sharing of the same verbal suffixes with passives. The generic operator unselectively binds the event variable e and consequently ascribes a disposition to the theme occupying the grammatical subject position. This binding prevents Existentential Closure from binding this variable which would result in an episodic reading of the event that middles sentence are incapable of yielding. Unlike English middles which employ VoiceSUB[+ACT]/SUB, Korean middles are generic passives.

Case and agreement as contextually manipulable properties of functional heads

Some recent work has argued that agreement and case-assignment dependencies between a functional head and a nearby NP are not part of the syntactic derivation proper, but take place in the postsyntactic, morphological component of the grammar. I argue that this view is correct, by showing that one of its largely unexplored predictions has real empirical payout. The prediction is that the dependency-forming properties of functional heads, being morphological in nature, are mutable, and may be conditioned by nearby roots and functional structure. I focus here on Voice heads in Choctaw, and my starting assumption is that, by default,$ {\mathrm{Voice}}_{\left[+\mathrm{N}\right]} $(the Voice head which introduces a specifier) agrees with its specifier (the external argument) and$ {\mathrm{Voice}}_{\left[-\mathrm{N}\right]} $(i.e. specifier-less Voice, found in unaccusatives) does not agree with anything. However, I propose that in some environments,$ {\mathrm{Voice}}_{\left[-\mathrm{N}\right]} $doeslaunch a$ \phi $-probe, and it results in$ {\mathrm{Voice}}_{\left[-\mathrm{N}\right]} $agreeing with the internal argument. I refer to these configurations as ‘low ergatives’. A small survey of previous work on case and agreement dependencies suggests (a) that the case-assignment properties of functional heads are mutable in the same way, and (b) that the reverse is attested – in some environments$ {\mathrm{Voice}}_{\left[+\mathrm{N}\right]} $failsto launch a$ \phi $-probe. This is consistent with a purely morphological model of agreement and case-assignment: just as the exponence and interpretation of functional heads can be conditioned by adjacent roots and functional material, so too can the dependency-forming properties of those heads be conditioned in the same way.

Reflexive clitics are verbal, not pronominal

AbstractI argue that reflexive clitics are not pronominal, but verbal. Cross-linguistically, reflexive clitics can realize either an unaccusative or an unergative Voice head, both of which allow anaphoric interpretations (as suggested by the work of Reinhart and Siloni 2004, 2005). I contrast the anaphoric Voice analysis with two well-known pronominal analyses of reflexive clitics: one, proposed for French, postulating an anaphoric external argument (McGinnis 1998, Sportiche 1998), and another, proposed for Icelandic figure reflexives, postulating an expletive argument in [Spec, pP] (Wood 2014, 2015; Wood and Marantz 2017). Evidence against the external-argument analysis for French includes: a language-internal contrast between unergative and unaccusative anaphoric clauses (Labelle 2008); the absence of a c-command requirement on the licensing of anaphoric Voice; the absence of a lethal ambiguity effect with anaphoric Voice (McGinnis 1998, 2004); and the interpretation of focus constructions with seul ‘only’ (Sportiche 2014, Haiden 2019). Evidence against the Icelandic expletive-argument analysis includes: the observation that not all figure reflexives have a pP, or allow an impersonal passive (Moser 2021); and the difficulty of extending the analysis to other languages with reflexive clitics – in particular, the difficulty of accounting for the widespread observation that anaphoric clitics are restricted to referential dependencies involving the external argument.

On Causee in Sason Arabic

AbstractThis article aims to understand the syntax of three causative constructions in Sason Arabic. It demonstrates that in geminate causatives and ‘give’ causatives, the causee is introduced in CauseeP, unlike the embedded agent in ‘make’ causatives, which embed a thematic VoiceP. Despite differing from Voice in several respects, Causee, like Voice, exhibits an active–passive‐like alternation, which provides independent evidence for an analysis of the passive that treats it as a subtype of the Voice head. The article further distinguishes between geminates and ‘give’ causatives on the basis of the (in)compatibility of the causee with an applied argument. In geminates, Causee and Appl are bundled, and the same argument bears two ‐roles, whereas in other causative constructions, Causee and Appl remain separate, with each argument bearing a distinct ‐role.

The French intensifierauto,and the roles ofvand Voice in introducing agents

AbstractThe paper focuses on the syntax and semantics of the French verbal prefixauto. It is proposed thatautois an intensifier stating that no agent other than the one specified in the clause (agent-focusing), or, in anticausative clauses, no agent (agent-denying), is responsible for the event. Syntactically,automerges with a verbal projection, and the nature of the constituent to which it attaches determines and constrains the interpretation of the clause. The proposed analysis ofautoprovides support for generative approaches in which avhead introduces the external argument role, while a grammatical Voice head determines its syntactic realization.

Voice Syncretism Crosslinguistically: The View from Minimalism

Voice syncretism is widely attested crosslinguistically. In this paper, we discuss three different types of Voice syncretism, under which the same morpheme participates in different configurations. We provide an approach under which the same Voice head can convey different interpretations depending on the environment it appears in, thus building on the notion of allosemy. We show that, in all cases under investigation, allosemy is closely associated with the existence of idiosyncratic patterns. By contrast, we notice that allosemy and idiosyncrasy are not present in analytic passive and causative constructions across different languages. We argue that the distinguishing feature between the two types of constructions is whether the passive and the causative interpretation comes from the Voice head, thus forming a single domain with the vP or whether passive and causative semantics are realized by distinct heads above the Voice layer, thus forming two distinct domains.

Does Vocal Fatigue Negatively Affect Low Vocal Range in Professional, Female Opera Singers? A Survey Study and Single-Subject Pilot Study

1. To survey how vocal fatigue manifests itself in the vocal range of a sample of professional, female opera singers. 2. To assess laryngeal videostroboscopic changes of one professional, female opera singer before and after extended operatic singing. Survey study: 296 professional, female opera singers were recruited to participate in an anonymous research survey querying the temporary impact of vocal fatigue in professional, female opera singers. 46.3% of participants described themselves as singing mainstage roles at large, A-level opera houses. Singers were asked to report where in their vocal range they experienced the effects of vocal fatigue and could choose more than one response. Single-subject study: One professional, female opera singer (the author) underwent two laryngeal videostroboscopic exams pre and post vocal loading. The exams were evaluated and compared independently by two blinded laryngologists. The results of the survey found that 42.9% of the total responses from professional, female opera singers indicated a temporary impact on the lower middle range (≈C4-F4) as a result of vocal fatigue. 36.5% of participants experienced a temporary impact on their lowest range (≈below C4) and 19.6% reported a temporary impact on their higher range due to vocal fatigue. The results of the single-subject study showed reduced glottal closure pattern in the postloading, lower middle range, head voice condition. A large proportion (64.9%) of the professional, female opera singers surveyed reported increased difficulty navigating their lower middle range and/or lowest range after extended operatic singing. These results support the single-subject study, which found that after vocal loading, there was a decrease in glottal competence while singing in head voice in the lower middle range.

Grammatical encoding of agency in Asturian middle constructions

Middle-passive constructions in Asturian –a Romance language spoken in the diglossic region of Asturias, in northern Spain– appear to optionally allow the occurrence of the reflexive pronoun se in them (esti pan esmigáya(se) fácil; ‘this bread crumbles easily’); this has been traditionally considered a pleonastic use of the reflexive due to the influence of Spanish, i.e. the dominant language in the territory (ALLA 2001). Here, I claim that the presence of such pronoun is not optional; instead, I argue that this clitic spells out a passive Voice head encoding the participation of an implicit generic agent/experiencer in the event, giving rise to a generic se-passive configuration. The se-less counterpart, on the contrary, is only possible with unaccusative verbs and those undergoing the causative alternation, thus resulting in a generic inchoative configuration. Among the evidence I present supporting this claim is the fact that only the reflexive variant can control into a purpose clause, but it does not license the insertion of the PP por sí mesmu (‘by itself’); this is quite the opposite of what happens with the se-less counterpart. Additionally, I explain that the presence/absence of the reflexive in middle contexts in Asturian and Asturian Spanish may be subject to crosslinguistic influence; therefore, several cases of linguistic transfer between Asturian and Asturian Spanish are teased apart and discussed.

Deconstructing North Sámi sensive verbs

North Sámi has a class of derived verbs called sensive verbs. Descriptively, these verbs are formed by adding the suffix /ʃ/ to an adjectival or nominal base, and the resulting verb means ‘find [object] (too) ADJECTIVE/NOUN’. In this paper it is argued that the sensive verbs do not involve any psychological verb, and the suffix is not specified as “sensive” in the lexicon. Rather, the suffix is specified as a realisation of a stative verbaliser in a transitive structure. The interpretation of the verb and the experiencer role of the subject follow from this specification in combination with the syntax of the verb phrase as a whole, which has a stative verbaliser and a Voice head on top of a minimal aP or nP. Other vocabulary items that could spell out the stative verbaliser are prevented from appearing in the sensive verb phrase, since the conditions for inserting them are not met. The consequence is that the suffix /ʃ/ is restricted to sensive verbs.

Spanish Anticausative Inherent Reciprocals and Syntactic Reciprocals with Se*

AbstractWithin the debate about the heterogeneity of unaccusative structures, the aim of this paper is to distinguish two types of Spanish marked anticausative inherent reciprocals (AIRs) from other syntactic reciprocals (SRs) withse. Several diagnostics show that AIRs such asmezclarse‘get mixed’ are symmetric, unaccusative, telic, and show causative alternations, while SRs are transitive and vary in their aspectual properties and do not show causative alternations. Theen/durante‘in/for’ adverbials test reveals that there are two types of AIRs: achievements such ascasarse‘get married’, and degree achievements such asmezclarse‘get mixed’. Although the clitic is an agreement marker in these reciprocal constructions, it is an expletive voice head withcasarse, a causative head withmezclarse, and an anaphor merged in the internal argument position in SRs. Differences between AIRs and SRs depend on semantic properties associated to their respective event structures.

Variable embedded agent in Sason Arabic

The paper investigates the syntax and semantics of an indirect causative construction, ‘make’ causatives, in Sason Arabic with a focus on the syntax of the embedded structure and the status of the implicit embedded agent. On the basis of several diagnostics, the study demonstrates that ‘make’ embeds an agentive VoiceP, which also manifests an active-passive alternation despite the absence of any morphological reflex. Regarding the nature of the implicit embedded agent, the paper argues that it is present as a free variableà laHeim (1982) generated on the Voice head itself. In so doing, it adds to the ontology of null arguments as well as suggesting that licensing of a grammatical object is dissociated from the projection of a specifier.