Tongue surface displacement during bilabial stops

The goals of this study were to characterize tongue surface displacement during production of bilabial stops and to refine current estimates of vocal-tract wall impedance using direct measurements of displacement in the vocal tract during closure. In addition, evidence was obtained to test the competing claims of passive and active enlargement of the vocal tract during voicing. Tongue displacement was measured and tongue compliance was estimated in four subjects during production of /aba/ and /apa/. All subjects showed more tongue displacement during /aba/ than during /apa/, even though peak intraoral pressure is lower for /aba/. In consequence, compliance estimates were much higher for /aba/, ranging from 5.1 to 8.5 x 10(-5) cm3/dyn. Compliance values for /apa/ ranged from 0.8 to 2.3 x 10(-5) cm3/dyn for the tongue body, and 0.52 x 10(-5) for the single tongue tip point that was measured. From combined analyses of tongue displacement and intraoral pressure waveforms for one subject, it was concluded that smaller tongue displacements for /p/ than for /b/ may be due to active stiffening of the tongue during /p/, or to intentional relaxation of tongue muscles during /b/ (in conjunction with active tongue displacement during /b/).