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Effects of bite block speech on intrinsic segment duration.
1Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ill.
Phonetica
|January 1, 1987
Summary
Jaw movement influences vowel duration, but does not fully explain why low vowels are longer than high vowels. Fixing the jaw reduced but did not eliminate these intrinsic vowel duration differences.
Area of Science:
- Phonetics
- Speech Production
- Acoustic Analysis
Background:
- Low vowels typically exhibit longer intrinsic duration than high vowels.
- This phenomenon is often linked to the biomechanics of jaw movement during speech production.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the role of mandibular (jaw) movement in intrinsic vowel duration differences.
- To determine if mechanical effects alone account for the duration contrast between high and low vowels.
Main Methods:
- Six adult English speakers produced consonant-vowel-consonant stimuli with high and low vowels.
- Vowel and consonant durations were acoustically measured under normal and jaw-fixed conditions.
Main Results:
- Fixing the jaw partially reduced intrinsic duration differences between high and low vowels.
- The contrast in vowel duration was not completely eliminated by jaw stabilization.
- Jaw fixation also systematically affected consonant closure durations.
Conclusions:
- Mandibular movement contributes to intrinsic vowel duration differences, but is not the sole cause.
- Other factors likely play a role in the observed duration contrasts between high and low vowels.