Acoustic classification of coronal stops of Eastern Punjabi

Punjabi is an Indo-Aryan language which contrasts a rich set of coronal stops at dental and retroflex places of articulation across three laryngeal configurations. Moreover, all these stops occur contrastively in various positions (word-initially, -medially, and -finally). The goal of this study is to investigate how various coronal place and laryngeal contrasts are distinguished acoustically both within and across word positions. A number of temporal and spectral correlates were examined in data from 13 speakers of Eastern Punjabi: Voice Onset Time, release and closure durations, fundamental frequency, F1-F3 formants, spectral center of gravity and standard deviation, H1*-H2*, and cepstral peak prominence. The findings indicated that higher formants and spectral measures were most important for the classification of place contrasts across word positions, whereas laryngeal contrasts were reliably distinguished by durational and voice quality measures. Word-medially and -finally, F2 and F3 of the preceding vowels played a key role in distinguishing the dental and retroflex stops, while spectral noise measures were more important word-initially. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of factors involved in the maintenance of typologically rare and phonetically complex sets of place and laryngeal contrasts in the coronal stops of Indo-Aryan languages.

Laryngographic study of phonation type and laryngeal configuration

This study's objective is to identify the vibratory phase characteristics and corresponding laryngeal configurations of a series of phonation types common in current phonetic usage. The phonation types examined are categorized auditorily following the articulatory framework established by Laver (1968, 1975, 1976, 1980), the general phonetic theory of Abercrombie (1967), and the systematic nomenclature for phonation types provided by Catford (1964). The primary phonation types in this taxonomy are compared laryngographically to determine their larynx waveform characteristics, based on the auditorily controlled performance of a single phonetically trained subject, and are described visually from laryngoscopic observation. This study is intended as a means of establishing a basis for further work in which a larger inventory of speakers of known background and a wider variety of possible phonatory combinations are examined. These preliminary comparisons suggest a set of relationships between phases of the vocal fold vibratory cycle and laryngeal configuration, expressed in terms of contrasting systems of stricture, and support a number of predictions that have been made in the literature on phonatory mechanisms.