Using fibreoptic laryngoscopy to observe pharyngeal articulations, the aryepiglottic sphincter mechanism is shown to be responsible for the production of speech sounds in the phonetic category "pharyngeal." Major differences in auditory/acoustic quality are also produced when the larynx as a whole is raised or lowered during the production of pharyngeals. The voiceless pharyngeal fricative and voiced pharyngeal approximant are the result of increased sphincteric constriction of the laryngeal "tube" in a continuum that begins with normal glottal stop and ventricular fold closure. A pharyngeal stop is produced when the aryepiglottic sphincter mechanism achieves complete closure, and trilling accompanying friction is evident at the pharyngeal place of articulation in both voiceless and voiced modes. It is suggested that all five sounds share a common, pharyngeal place of articulation, but differ in manner of articulation. Raised larynx is the default setting for these articulations, but they may be produced with lowered larynx.
Cite as: Esling, J.H. (1998) Laryngoscopic analysis of pharyngeal articulations and larynx-height voice quality settings. Proc. 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP 1998), paper 0617, doi: 10.21437/ICSLP.1998-363
@inproceedings{esling98_icslp,
author={John H. Esling},
title={{Laryngoscopic analysis of pharyngeal articulations and larynx-height voice quality settings}},
year=1998,
booktitle={Proc. 5th International Conference on Spoken Language Processing (ICSLP 1998)},
pages={paper 0617},
doi={10.21437/ICSLP.1998-363}
}