Aus: Gordon, M., Ladefoged P. (2001) Phonation types: a cross linguistic
overview. Journal of Phonetics 29, 383-406.
"One person's voice disorder might be another person's phoneme."
(Ladefoged, 1983)
Continuum of phonation types (after Ladefoged, 1971)
most open ------------------------------------------------ most closed
VL
breathy
modal
creaky
Glottal Stop
Ladefoged suggested that there might be a continuum of phonation types,
defined in terms of the aperture between the arytenoid cartilages, ranging
from voiceless (furthest apart), through breathy voiced, to regular modal
voiced, and then on through creaky voice to glottal closure (closest
together).
Voiced – voiceless
• Majority of languages exploit the phonation contrast of V versus VL.
• This contrast is most common in stops.
• Burmese, Hmong, Klamath and Angami even contrast V and VL nasals.
Breathy
• Vocal cords are fairly abducted
• Little longitudinal tension
• Result is some turbulent airflow through the glottis and the auditory
impression of "voice mixed with breath"
• Waveform in the oscillogram is characterized by a fair amount of noisy
energy which contributes to the relatively jagged appearance to the
waveform and diminishes the clarity of individual pitch impulses.
• Sonagram is characterized by a not well-defined VC transition, broader
formant bandwidths and some high-frequency noise.
Some Asian languages (Hindi, Maithili)) contrast breathy and modal voiced
obstruents. However, most languages contrast breathy and modal in their
vowels rather than consonants.
Creaky voice (vocal fry)
• Vocal folds are tightly adducted but open along a portion of their length
to allow for voicing.
• Result is a series of irregularly spaced vocal pulses that give the auditory
impression of a "rapid series of taps, like a stick being run along a
railing".
• Waveform in the oscillogram is characterized by irregularily spaced
pitch periods and decreased acoustic intensity (relative to modal
phonation). There are fewer pitch periods per second indicating a lower
fundamental frequency.
• Often longer durations than their modal counterparts.
Ladefoged differentiates tense phonation from creaky. The former is said to
involve increased constriction in the laryngeal area.
Creaky voice is used cross-linguistically as a marker of prosodic boundaries,
either initially and/or finally.
Glottal stop
• Complete glottal closure.
• No vocal fold vibrations.
• Phonemic glottal stops are often realized as creaky phonation on
neighboring sounds rather than with complete glottal closure.
Some languages contrast modal voice and creaky voice, or contrast creaky
with both modal voice and breathy voice.
Again contrasts between modal and creaky in stops are rare. However,
Hausa and other African languages make such a contrast. The creaky stops
in these languages are implosives and involve larnyx lowering as well as a
creaky voice quality.
Northwest American Indian languages (Montana Salish, Hupa) contrast
creaky and modal voicing among sonorants (nasals).
A three-way phonation contrast is mainly found for vowels, e.g. in Jalapa
Mazatec.
Most non-modal phonation settings are realized only on a portion of the
sound or some portion of an adjacent sound but hardly ever at the CV
transition phase, which provides important information about place and
manner of articulation of the consonant.
Quantifying phonation differences: Acoustic and aearodynamic
characteristics (for more see WiSe0708 "Akustik für Fortgeschritte"
1. aperiodicity can be quantified by jitter = the variation in the
duration of successive fundamental frequencies; highest in creaky
voice; in breathy voice also increased spectral noise in higher
frequencies
2. reduction of acoustic intensity highest in breathy and then creaky
voice; reliably quantifiable by spectral tilt = the degree to which
intensity drops off as frequency increases: compare the amplitude of
F0 and that of higher frequency harmonics, e.g. the second
harmonic. Spectral tilt is most steeply positive for creaky voice and
most steeply positive for breathy voice with (intermediate values for
modal voice).
3. fundamental frequency lowered in non-modal voice
4. first formant is higher during creaky phonation than breathy or
modal.