Acoustical Consequences of Lip, Tongue, Jaw, and Larynx Movement

Abstract

In the past, numerous attempts have been made to develop quantitative models of the human vocal tract. The present paper describes such a model and some of its acoustic properties. It has been constructed with a view towards finding a set of parameters that are physiologically “natural.” Thus it differs from earlier schemes in that the mandible has been incorporated as an independent parameter. Other novel features can be interpreted to represent larynx height, the rounding-spreading action of the lip musculature, and “genioglossal,” “styloglossal,” and “hyoglossal” components of tongue shape. The paper describes the acoustic effects of varying these parameters systematically. The model is capable of generating most of the vowel qualities known to occur in the languages of the world. In general, well-known vowel sounds are found along the extreme contours of the total acoustic space characteristic of the model. They are not necessarily located at acoustic “plateaus” or regions insensitive to articulatory imprecision. The model specifies the notion of “possible vowel articulation” in terms of parameters that are not in a one-one relation with distinctive feature dimensions such as open, close, high, low. A discussion of the implications of these results for universal phonetic and phonological theory concludes the paper. [This work was supported by a research grant from The National Institutes of Health.]