Considers three different topics in speech research from the viewpoint of the physiology of the speech production mechanism: laryngeal control for voicing distinctions, articulatory dynamics in normal and dysarthric cases, and central mechanism of skilled movements. Includes a summary of a discussion on speech production. (RL)

A case is made for the increased study of paralinguistic voice qualifiers, which include variations in breathing, laryngeal, esophageal, pharyngeal, velopharyngeal, lingual, labial, mandibular, articulatory, articulatory tension, and objectual control. It is proposed that attention to these voice qualities has a variety of practical, literary,…

A study of electromyographic (EMG) activity and palatal movement is reported. Motion pictures were taken of the nasal surface of the soft palate and EMG recordings from the levator palatini muscle were obtained. Both were analyzed for the relationship of velar height to EMG strength and time. (SC)

Reports on an experiment, conducted on ten children who misarticulated /s/, and designed to survey the effect of consonant context on misarticulation. Suggests that a context-sensitive model of phonetic performance is needed to account for variation in correct /s/ production. (Author/AM)

Shows that vowel duration is a cue to voicing of syllable-final consonants. Notes that the effective duration of a vowel apparently extends over all parts of the acoustic signal, including the transitions reflecting the consequences of the coarticulation of vowel and consonant. (Author/RL)

It has been hypothesized that lax vowels may be relatively unaffected by dysarthria, owing to the reduced vocal tract shapes required for these phonetic events (G. S. Turner, K. Tjaden, & G. Weismer, 1995). It also has been suggested that lax vowels may be especially susceptible to speech mode effects (M. A. Picheny, N. I. Durlach, & L. D. Braida,…

Two possible explanations based on elementary facts of physics are suggested for the universal preference for place of articulation of implosives and ejectives. Languages show a preference for ejectives in the order: velar, alveolar, and labial while implosives occur most often in the opposite order. A language will only have velar implosives if…

Two experiments are reported in which the presence or absence of silence was found to be a relevant cue for the distinction between affricate and fricative when it occurred in sentence-medial position, but not when it occurred at a sentence boundary. (Author/AMH)

Explores the impact of new technological developments on three major areas of current interest to students of the language sciences: objective phonetic descriptions of speech sounds, the phenomenon of coarticulation, and improved methods of diagnosis and assessment of speech disorders. (39 references) (Author/OD)

Argues that text construction and the construction of subjectivity are coimplicated, historical, intertextual, social, and political. Interpretative analyses of the essays of two fourth-grade children demonstrate how these intertextual links implicate and are implicated in particular social formations and political ideologies. (Contains 39…

A study investigated the nature of clear and dark sounds (resonance) in English, focusing on the features associated with the lateral consonant /l/. Subjects were three male undergraduate students and one male university faculty member, all native speakers of different English varieties. Each subject read aloud 27 short phrases or sentences. Using…

The acoustic effects of the syllable-final /l/ significantly alter the vocalic timbre of the preceding vowel in Catalan. Vowel quality is modified anticipatory to the articulatory gestures required by the /l/, resulting in a lowered second formant. Syllable-final /l/ in Catalan is heavily velarized as a result of tongue tip-tongue back coupling…

Sentences were read by six informants to determine the presence or absence of /n/ in /nth/ sequences. The sentences contained seven different levels of juncture with /nth/ occurring in word final position, intervocalically, and across word boundaries, among other places. Dental coarticulation was not hindered by most junctures. (SC)