Subglottal coupling as a quantal basis for the feature [back].
Morgan Sonderegger, Xuemin Chi · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2008
A model of acoustic coupling between the oral and subglottal cavities is described, which predicts attenuation of vowel formant prominences and discontinuities in formant trajectories near resonances of the subglottal system. The hypothesis that these effects on F2 near the second subglottal resonance (SubF2) are quantal effects for the feature [back] is examined using acoustic and subglottal data from English-speaking adults. Experimental studies of F2 and SubF2 in English vowel production [Chi and Sonderegger, JASA 122, 1735–1745 (2007)] are reviewed and show that attenuation of second formant prominence and discontinuities in F2 trajectories near SubF2 consistently occur in back-front diphthongs, in accordance with the acoustic model, while for monophthongs front and back vowel F2 values pattern above and below SubF2, as expected under the quantal hypothesis. An additional analysis of the data is presented, showing that breathiness, attenuation, and discontinuity are positively correlated across back-front diphthongs, as predicted by the acoustic model. Lastly, a cross-linguistic survey of F2 data from 45 languages from the literature is presented, showing the cross-linguistic plausibility of the hypothesis that [+back] and [−back] vowel F2 values are separated by SubF2.