Respiratory Activity in Speech

Abstract

Functionally the subglottal respiratory system behaves for the most part like a piston in a piston chamber driven with a constant force (the sum of thoracic and abdominal muscular forces plus the elastic recoil force). Small, short term, variations in subglottal air pressure occur nevertheless due to (a) short-term variations in the resistance to the exiting airflow, i.e., from glottal and supraglottal articulations and (b) the inertia of the pulmonic system which creates delays in its passive response to such short-term variations in subglottal pressure. This casts doubt on claims of active contribution of the pulmonic system in the implementation of syllables, stress, certain sentence-final fundamental frequency contours, and certain segment types, e.g., aspirated stops.