Frequency of Apical and Laminal /s/ in Normal and Postglossectomy Patients.

Abstract

American English can be produced with two types of /s/: apical or laminal. These productions differ in that the apical gesture requires independent tongue tip elevation, and the laminal does not. Postglossectomy speakers, who have lost a unilateral portion of the tongue body along the outer edge, lose innervation to the tongue tip. We hypothesize that postglossectomy patients, even those with a preserved tongue tip, will be more likely to use laminal tongue shapes because of reduced control of the tongue tip. This study examines /s/ type, palate height, and related parameters in 24 control participants and 13 patients with lateral resections using cine-MRI and dental casts. Results of this dataset show that palate height affects choice of /s/ in control participants, but not in patients. Patients tend to use laminal /s/.