Examining the neoglottal vibratory pattern of Cantonese tracheoesophageal speakers : a preliminary aerodynamic study using inverse-filtering

Abstract

The present study examined the neoglottal vibratory pattern of Cantonese tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers by inverse-filtering the airflow signals obtained from eight superior TE speakers during phonation. The syllable /papapa/ was used for obtaining airflow signals, and the acoustic signals of the vowels /i, æ, a, ɔ, u/ were also obtained. Aerodynamic parameters obtained were compared between TE and laryngeal speakers. Results revealed that TE speakers exhibited comparable open quotient and airflow volume values but significantly smaller speed quotient values than laryngeal speakers. The marked difference in inverse-filtered airflow signals between TE and laryngeal speech of Cantonese is believed to be related to the use of different sounding mechanisms between the two speaking methods, and the unique vibratory nature of the neoglottis in TE speech.