Information about Phonation
In phonetics, phonation is the "use of the laryngeal system to generate an audible source of acoustic energy, i.e., sound, which can then be modified by the articulatory actions of the rest of the vocal apparatus."
Phonation has traditionally been seen as one dimension of phonetic voicing, the degree of glottal tension. (A second dimension of voicing is timing, called voice onset time, or "VOT". When a sound is described as "half voiced", it may not be clear whether it is quality (phonation) or quantity (VOT) that is referred to.)
However, with recent advances in imaging technology, it has become apparent that in many languages phonation involves more than just the glottis.
If the vocal folds are lax and not sufficiently close to vibrate, then the sound (usually a consonant) is voiceless.
The vocal vibration is varied to produce intonation and tone. This is accomplished by varying the pressure of the air column under the glottis as well as the tension in the vocal folds themselves. These actions produce changes in the frequency of vocal-cord vibration, which generates the fundamental pitch of the voice. Tone and intonation are not conveyed well by voiceless sounds, with their lax vocal folds, but the changes in airflow are still audible.
In classic treatments of phonation, such as those of Peter Ladefoged, phonation was considered to be a matter of points on a continuum of tension and closure of the vocal cords. More intricate mechanisms were occasionally described, but they were difficult to investigate, and until recently the state of the glottis and phonation were considered to be nearly synonymous.
If the vocal cords are completely relaxed, with the arytenoid cartilages apart for maximum airflow, the cords do not vibrate. This is voiceless phonation, and is extremely common with obstruents. If the arytenoids are pressed together for glottal closure, the vocal cords block the airstream, producing stop sounds such as the glottal stop. In between there is a sweet spot of maximum vibration. This is modal voice, and is the normal state for vowels and sonorants in all the world's languages. However, the aperture of the arytenoid cartilages, and therefore the tension in the vocal cords, is one of degree between the end points of open and closed, and there are several intermediate situations utilized by various languages to make contrasting sounds.
For example, Gujarati has vowels with a partially lax phonation called breathy voice or murmured, while Burmese has vowels with a partially tense phonation called creaky voice or laryngealized. Both of these phonations have dedicated IPA diacritics, an under-umlaut and under-tilde. The Jalapa dialect of Mazatec is unusual in contrasting both with modal voice in a three-way distinction. (Note that Mazatec is a tonal language, so the glottis is making several tonal distinctions simultaneously with the phonation distinctions.)
Javanese does not have modal voice in its plosives, but contrasts two other points along the phonation scale, with more moderate departures from modal voice, called slack voice and stiff voice. The "muddy" consonants in Shanghainese are slack voice; they contrast with tenuis and aspirated consonants.
Although each language may be somewhat different, it is convenient to classify these degrees of phonation into discrete categories. A series of seven alveolar plosives, with phonations ranging from an open/lax to a closed/tense glottis, are:
The IPA diacritics under-ring and subscript wedge, commonly called "voiceless" and "voiced", are sometimes added to the symbol for a voiced sound to indicate more lax/open (slack) and tense/closed (stiff) states of the glottis, respectively. (Ironically, adding the 'voicing' diacritic to the symbol for a voiced consonant indicates less modal voicing, not more, because a modally voiced sound is already fully voiced, at its sweet spot, and any further tension in the vocal cords dampens their vibration.)
Until the development of fiber-optic laryngoscopy, the full involvement of the larynx during speech production was not observable, and the interactions among the six laryngeal articulators is still poorly understood. However, at least two supra-glottal phonations appear to be widespread in the world's languages. These are harsh voice ('ventricular' or 'pressed' voice), which involves overall constriction of the larynx, and faucalized voice ('hollow' or 'yawny' voice), which involves overall expansion of the larynx.
The Bor dialect of Dinka has contrastive modal, breathy, faucalized, and harsh voice in its vowels, as well as three tones. The ad hoc diacritics employed in the literature are a subscript double quotation mark for faucalized voice, [a͈], and underlining for harsh voice, [a]. Examples are,
Other languages with these contrasts are Bai (modal, breathy, and harsh voice), Kabiye (faucalized and harsh voice, previously seen as ±ATR), Somali (breathy and harsh voice).
Elements of laryngeal articulation or phonation may occur widely in the world's languages as phonetic detail even when not phonemically contrastive. For example, simultaneous glottal, ventricular, and arytenoid activity (for something other than epiglottal consonants) has been observed in Tibetan, Korean, Nuuchahnulth, Nlaka’pamux, Thai, Sui, Amis, Pame, Arabic, Tigrinya, Cantonese, and Yi.
In English, every voiced fricative corresponds to a voiceless one. For the pairs of English plosives, however, the distinction is better specified as voice onset time rather than simply voice: In initial position /b d g/ are only partially voiced (voicing begins during the hold of the consonant), while /p t k/ are aspirated (voicing doesn't begin until well after its release).
Certain English morphemes have voiced and voiceless allomorphs, such as the plural, verbal, and possessive endings spelled -s (voiced in kids /kɪdz/ but voiceless in kits /kɪts/) and the past-tense ending spelled -ed (voiced in buzzed /bʌzd/ but voiceless in fished /fɪʃt/.
A few European languages, such as Finnish or Alemannic, have no phonemically voiced obstruents but pairs of long and short consonants instead. Outside of Europe, a lack of voicing distinctions is not uncommon; indeed, in Australian languages it is nearly universal.
In linguistics, intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking. Intonation and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody.
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Phonation has traditionally been seen as one dimension of phonetic voicing, the degree of glottal tension. (A second dimension of voicing is timing, called voice onset time, or "VOT". When a sound is described as "half voiced", it may not be clear whether it is quality (phonation) or quantity (VOT) that is referred to.)
However, with recent advances in imaging technology, it has become apparent that in many languages phonation involves more than just the glottis.
Voicing
If the vocal folds are lax and not sufficiently close to vibrate, then the sound (usually a consonant) is voiceless.
The vocal vibration is varied to produce intonation and tone. This is accomplished by varying the pressure of the air column under the glottis as well as the tension in the vocal folds themselves. These actions produce changes in the frequency of vocal-cord vibration, which generates the fundamental pitch of the voice. Tone and intonation are not conveyed well by voiceless sounds, with their lax vocal folds, but the changes in airflow are still audible.
Phonation as the state of the glottis
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A continuum from closed glottis to open. The black triangles represent the arytenoid cartilages, the sail shapes the vocal cords, and the dotted circle the windpipe.
In classic treatments of phonation, such as those of Peter Ladefoged, phonation was considered to be a matter of points on a continuum of tension and closure of the vocal cords. More intricate mechanisms were occasionally described, but they were difficult to investigate, and until recently the state of the glottis and phonation were considered to be nearly synonymous.
If the vocal cords are completely relaxed, with the arytenoid cartilages apart for maximum airflow, the cords do not vibrate. This is voiceless phonation, and is extremely common with obstruents. If the arytenoids are pressed together for glottal closure, the vocal cords block the airstream, producing stop sounds such as the glottal stop. In between there is a sweet spot of maximum vibration. This is modal voice, and is the normal state for vowels and sonorants in all the world's languages. However, the aperture of the arytenoid cartilages, and therefore the tension in the vocal cords, is one of degree between the end points of open and closed, and there are several intermediate situations utilized by various languages to make contrasting sounds.
For example, Gujarati has vowels with a partially lax phonation called breathy voice or murmured, while Burmese has vowels with a partially tense phonation called creaky voice or laryngealized. Both of these phonations have dedicated IPA diacritics, an under-umlaut and under-tilde. The Jalapa dialect of Mazatec is unusual in contrasting both with modal voice in a three-way distinction. (Note that Mazatec is a tonal language, so the glottis is making several tonal distinctions simultaneously with the phonation distinctions.)
| Mazatec | ||
| breathy voice | [ja̤] | he wears |
| modal voice | [já] | tree |
| creaky voice | [ja̰] | he carries |
- Note: There was an editing error in the source of this information. The latter two translations may have been mixed up.
Javanese does not have modal voice in its plosives, but contrasts two other points along the phonation scale, with more moderate departures from modal voice, called slack voice and stiff voice. The "muddy" consonants in Shanghainese are slack voice; they contrast with tenuis and aspirated consonants.
Although each language may be somewhat different, it is convenient to classify these degrees of phonation into discrete categories. A series of seven alveolar plosives, with phonations ranging from an open/lax to a closed/tense glottis, are:
| Open glottis | [t] | voiceless (full airstream) |
| [d̤] | breathy voice | |
| [d̥] | slack voice | |
| Sweet spot | [d] | modal voice (maximum vibration) |
| [d̬] | stiff voice | |
| [d̰] | creaky voice | |
| Closed glottis | [ʔ͡t] | glottal closure (blocked airstream) |
The IPA diacritics under-ring and subscript wedge, commonly called "voiceless" and "voiced", are sometimes added to the symbol for a voiced sound to indicate more lax/open (slack) and tense/closed (stiff) states of the glottis, respectively. (Ironically, adding the 'voicing' diacritic to the symbol for a voiced consonant indicates less modal voicing, not more, because a modally voiced sound is already fully voiced, at its sweet spot, and any further tension in the vocal cords dampens their vibration.)
Unaccompanied phonation
It has long been noted that, both phonologically and historically, the glottal consonants [ʔ, ɦ, h] do not behave like other consonants. Phonetically, they have no manner or place of articulation other than the state of the glottis: glottal closure for [ʔ], breathy voice for [ɦ], and open airstream for [h]. Some phoneticians have described these sounds as neither glottal nor consonantal, but instead as instances of pure phonation.Register
Many languages combine phonation and tone into a single phonological system. In Mazatec, tone and phonation have separate lives, so that all possible combinations of its several tones and phonations can be utilized to distinguish words, but Burmese tones do not contrast directly in this way. Rather each Burmese tone occurs only with a specific phonation that serves to make it more distinctive — or, from a different point of view, Burmese tone serves to make the phonations more distinct. These tone-phonation hybrids are called registers.Supra-glottal phonation
In the last few decades it has become apparent that phonation may involve the entire larynx, with as many as six valves and muscles working either independently or together. From the glottis upward, these articulations are[1]- glottal (the vocal cords), producing the distinctions described above
- ventricular (the 'false vocal cords', partially covering and damping the glottis)
- arytenoid (sphincteric compression forwards and upwards)
- epiglotto-pharyngeal (retraction of the tongue and epiglottis, potentially closing onto the pharyngeal wall)
- raising or lowering of the entire larynx
- narrowing of the pharynx
Until the development of fiber-optic laryngoscopy, the full involvement of the larynx during speech production was not observable, and the interactions among the six laryngeal articulators is still poorly understood. However, at least two supra-glottal phonations appear to be widespread in the world's languages. These are harsh voice ('ventricular' or 'pressed' voice), which involves overall constriction of the larynx, and faucalized voice ('hollow' or 'yawny' voice), which involves overall expansion of the larynx.
The Bor dialect of Dinka has contrastive modal, breathy, faucalized, and harsh voice in its vowels, as well as three tones. The ad hoc diacritics employed in the literature are a subscript double quotation mark for faucalized voice, [a͈], and underlining for harsh voice, [a]. Examples are,
| Voice | modal | breathy | harsh | faucalized |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bor Dinka | ʨìt̪ | ʨì̤t̪ | ʨìt̪ | ʨì͈t̪ |
| diarrhea | go ahead | scorpions | to swallow |
Other languages with these contrasts are Bai (modal, breathy, and harsh voice), Kabiye (faucalized and harsh voice, previously seen as ±ATR), Somali (breathy and harsh voice).
Elements of laryngeal articulation or phonation may occur widely in the world's languages as phonetic detail even when not phonemically contrastive. For example, simultaneous glottal, ventricular, and arytenoid activity (for something other than epiglottal consonants) has been observed in Tibetan, Korean, Nuuchahnulth, Nlaka’pamux, Thai, Sui, Amis, Pame, Arabic, Tigrinya, Cantonese, and Yi.
Phonation in familiar languages
In languages such as French, all obstruents occur in pairs, one modally voiced and one voiceless.In English, every voiced fricative corresponds to a voiceless one. For the pairs of English plosives, however, the distinction is better specified as voice onset time rather than simply voice: In initial position /b d g/ are only partially voiced (voicing begins during the hold of the consonant), while /p t k/ are aspirated (voicing doesn't begin until well after its release).
Certain English morphemes have voiced and voiceless allomorphs, such as the plural, verbal, and possessive endings spelled -s (voiced in kids /kɪdz/ but voiceless in kits /kɪts/) and the past-tense ending spelled -ed (voiced in buzzed /bʌzd/ but voiceless in fished /fɪʃt/.
A few European languages, such as Finnish or Alemannic, have no phonemically voiced obstruents but pairs of long and short consonants instead. Outside of Europe, a lack of voicing distinctions is not uncommon; indeed, in Australian languages it is nearly universal.
See also
- List of phonetics topics
- Breathy voice
- Slack voice
- Stiff voice
- Creaky voice
- Harsh voice
- Strident vowel
- Faucalized voice
- Voice onset time
- Voice organ
External links
- Universität Stuttgart Speech production
- Université de Lausanne Speech production
- Edmondson & Esling paper on harsh, faucalized, and strident phonation (PDF)
Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning 'sound, voice') is the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the actual properties of speech sounds (phones), and their production, audition and perception, while phonology, which
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The larynx (plural larynges), colloquially known as the voicebox, is an organ in the neck of mammals involved in protection of the trachea and sound production.
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The space between the vocal cords is called the glottis.
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Function
As the vocal cords vibrate, the resulting vibration produces a "buzzing" quality to the speech, called voice or voicing...... Click the link for more information.
In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is the length of time that passes between when a consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds begins.
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In phonetics, voice or voicing is one of the three major parameters used to describe a sound. It is usually treated as a binary parameter with sounds being described as either voiceless (unvoiced) or voiced
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lungs flank the heart and great vessels in the chest cavity.[1]]]
The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing vertebrates, the most primitive being the lungfish.
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The lung is the essential respiration organ in air-breathing vertebrates, the most primitive being the lungfish.
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The vocal folds, also known popularly as vocal cords, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the larynx. They vibrate, modulating the flow of air being expelled from the lungs during phonation.
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Vibration refers to mechanical oscillations about an equilibrium point. The oscillations may be periodic such as the motion of a pendulum or random such as the movement of a tire on a gravel road.
Vibration is occasionally desirable.
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Vibration is occasionally desirable.
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The vocal tract is that cavity in animals and humans, where sound that is produced at the sound source (larynx in mammals; syrinx in birds) is filtered. In birds it consists of the trachea, the syrinx, the oral cavity, the upper part of the esophagus, and the beak.
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vowel is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by an open configuration of the vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, which are characterized by a constriction or closure at one or more points along the
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consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. The word consonant
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consonant is a sound in spoken language that is characterized by a closure or stricture of the vocal tract sufficient to cause audible turbulence. The word consonant
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Not to be confused with inflection.
In linguistics, intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking. Intonation and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody.
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Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish words. All languages use intonation to express emphasis, contrast, emotion, or other such elements, but not every language uses tone to distinguish lexical meaning.
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fundamental tone, often referred to simply as the fundamental and abbreviated fo, is the lowest frequency in a harmonic series.
The fundamental frequency (also called a natural frequency
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The fundamental frequency (also called a natural frequency
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Peter Nielsen Ladefoged (pronounced [ˈlædɪfəʊ̯ɡɪd]; September 17, 1925 – January 24, 2006) was an English-American linguist and phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct
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obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing outward airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract.
Obstruents are those articulations in which there is a total closure or a stricture causing friction, both groups being associated with a
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Obstruents are those articulations in which there is a total closure or a stricture causing friction, both groups being associated with a
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glottal stop or voiceless glottal plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʔ.
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A sweet spot is a place, often numerical as opposed to physical, where a combination of factors suggest a particularly suitable solution.
When used in the context of a racquet, bat or similar sporting instrument, sweet spot
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When used in the context of a racquet, bat or similar sporting instrument, sweet spot
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sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. Essentially this means that a sound is sonorant if it can be produced continuously at the same pitch.
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Gujarati}}}
Writing system: Gujarati script
Official status
Official language of: Gujarat (India)[1][2]
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: gu
ISO 639-2: guj
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Writing system: Gujarati script
Official status
Official language of: Gujarat (India)[1][2]
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: gu
ISO 639-2: guj
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Breathy voice or murmured voice is a phonation in which the vocal cords vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are held further apart, so that a larger volume of air escapes between them. This produces an audible noise.
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Burmese}}}
Writing system: Burmese abugida
Official status
Official language of: Myanmar
Regulated by: Myanmar Language Commission
Language codes
ISO 639-1: my
ISO 639-2: bur (B) mya (T)
ISO 639-3:
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Writing system: Burmese abugida
Official status
Official language of: Myanmar
Regulated by: Myanmar Language Commission
Language codes
ISO 639-1: my
ISO 639-2: bur (B) mya (T)
ISO 639-3:
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Creaky voice (also called laryngealisation, pulse phonation or, in singing, vocal fry or glottal fry), is a special kind of phonation in which the arytenoid cartilages in the larynx are drawn together; as a result, the vocal folds are compressed rather
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The Mazatecan languages are a closely related group of indigenous Mesoamerican languages spoken in the northern part of the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, and in some communities in the states of Puebla and Veracruz.
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The Javanese language is the spoken language of the people in the central and eastern part of the island of Java, in Indonesia. It is the native language of more than 75,500,000 people.
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stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. The terms plosive and stop are usually used interchangeably, but they are not perfect synonyms.
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The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in "normal" (modal) voice. Such sounds are often referred to informally as lenis or half-voiced.
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The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening narrower, and the vocal cords stiffer, than what occurs in "normal" (modal) voice.
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Shanghainese (上海言话 [zɑ̃˨.'he˦.ɦɛ˨.ɦʊ˩] in Shanghainese), sometimes referred to as the Shanghai dialect
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