On the relationship between vowel height and fundamental frequency: evidence from esophageal speech.
Data from esophageal speech produced by laryngectomized patients was used to provide a reexamination of major contemporary hypotheses advanced to account for intrinsic variation in vowel fundamental frequency (F0). 4 speakers provided recordings of 15 tokens of three CVC syllables [hid, hud, had]. Analysis of these utterances revealed that intrinsic variation in vowel F0 is clearly evident in esophageal speech. These findings were interpreted (1) to support neither the source-tract coupling nor the tongue-pull hypotheses and (2) to highlight the need to test alternative explanations to account for the intrinsic variation in vowel F0.
D000368:Aged; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013060:Speech; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013071:Speech, Alaryngeal; D013072:Speech, Esophageal; D014059:Tongue / Q000502:physiology