Voicing and tongue-palate contact differences in Japanese obstruents

Abstract

Voicing in obstruents requires complex coordination of laryngeal and supralaryngea1 organs (Perke11 1969, Westbury 1983, among others). In order for the vocal folds to vibrate, the air pressure below the larynx has to be higher than above it, in the oral cavity. This transglottal air pressure di f ference can be achieved through an expansion of the pharyngeal cavity, primarily by advancing the root of the tongue (Kent and M oll i 969, Svirsky, Stevens, Mathies, Manze11a, Perke11 and Wilhelms-Tricarico 1997, Proctor, Shadle and Iskarous 2010). This mechanism, in tum, can have an effect on the location and the degree of an oral constriction, making lingual articulations for voiced obstruents somewhat di f ferent from their voiceless counterparts. The exact consequences of this can vary for dif ferent places (e.g. alveolars and velars) and manners of articulation (stops and fricatives), given the additional constraints specific to di f ferent articulators or dif ferent air dynamic conditions (see Fuchs, 2005 for a review). The focus of this study is on details of supralaryngea1 realization of voicing in stops and fricatives as manifested in the contact between the tongue and the palate.