Volume 33, Issue 3

Sweep frequency measurements of the transfer function of nasals and nasalized vowels have been found to show a more complex pole-zero pattern than can be predicted with a traditional model of the nasal tract which consists of two parallel tubes coupled to the oral cavities. In this paper, we put forward the hypothesis that the more complex transfer function can be explained with reference to the shunting effect of the sinus maxillares and the sinus frontales. The two maxillar sinuses are situated in the bone symmetrically on the right and left side of the nasal tract. The two frontal sinuses are situated above the nasal tract in the bone of the forehead. These cavities are acoustically coupled to the nasal tract via short channels in the bone. Direct sweep tone data on the transfer function of the nasal tract support this hypothesis.

The results of an experimental research of the glottal activity during the production of Icelandic consonants and consonant clusters are reported. The method of research is the photoglottography. It is concluded from the data examined that aspiration in Icelandic can be described as a function of glottal opening at the moment of release. The last part of the study contains a discussion of the place of phonetics in linguistic analysis. It is asserted that an analysis of the linguistic form always must precede a phonetic analysis.

The purpose of this study was to explore select properties of speech movement coordination. Values of displacement for the upper lip, lower lip and jaw were obtained during repetitive productions of three vowels (æ, i, Ε in CVCVC contexts) by six subjects at two speaking rates. These data were analyzed to determine the relative contribution of each of these articulators to the superior-inferior distance between the upper and lower lips. The results of these analyses provided substantive evidence for the operation of motor equivalence in the speech movement coordination of the labial-mandibular system. The theoretical implications of these findings for the neural control mechanisms underlying speech movements are discussed.

A.DUFRICHE-DESGENETTES’ (1804-ca. 1885) life and work has remained in the dark until today, although he was a founding member of the Société de Linguistique de Paris. It was only some 70 years after his death that R. Godel in 1957, in his Sources manuscrites of the Saussurean Cours, bestowed recognition on Dufriche-Desgenettes as the inventor of the term ‘phoneme’ in a paper presented to the Paris Linguistic Society on May 24 1873. The present paper is the first attempt to bring together the essential information available about Dufriche-Desgenettes, the man and his work.