Main description:

The first description of voice quality production in forty years, this book provides a new framework for its study: The Laryngeal Articulator Model. Informed by instrumental examinations of the laryngeal articulatory mechanism, it revises our understanding of articulatory postures to explain the actions, vibrations and resonances generated in the epilarynx and pharynx. It focuses on the long-term auditory-articulatory component of accent in the languages of the world, explaining how voice quality relates to segmental and syllabic sounds. Phonetic illustrations of phonation types and of laryngeal and oral vocal tract articulatory postures are provided. Extensive video and audio material is available on a companion website. The book presents computational simulations, the laryngeal and voice quality foundations of infant speech acquisition, speech/voice disorders and surgeries that entail compensatory laryngeal articulator adjustment, and an exploration of the role of voice quality in sound change and of the larynx in the evolution of speech.

Contents:

1. Voice and voice quality; 2. Voice quality classification; 3. Instrumental case studies and computational simulations of voice quality; 4. Linguistic, paralinguistic and extralinguistic illustrations of voice quality; 5. Phonological implications of voice quality theory; 6. Infant acquisition of speech and voice quality; 7. Clinical illustrations of voice quality; 8. Laryngeal articulation and voice quality in sound change, language ontogeny.