Volume 34, Issue 5

Ultrasonic imaging was used to measure the distance from the external neck wall to the anterior pharyngeal wall (APW). Measurements were made in the centre of the vocalic segment of 50 CVC syllables. 5 ‘tense’ and 5 ‘lax’ vowels of Standard American English were used. The APW was shown to position itself according to a combination of tongue height, frontness and ‘tenseness’ of the vowel, and coarticulation effects of neighbouring consonants. Tense vowels showed APW advancement compared to lax vowels having similar tongue height and frontness. Coarticulation effects depend on voicing and place of articulation. The ultrasonic equipment used is described briefly. Implications for distinctive feature theory are mentioned.

Some methodological aspects of the main physiological techniques for investigating the velopharyngeal closure mechanism are discussed. A new instrument for optical registration of velar movement is described. The possibilities and limits arising from its mode of operation are discussed. First results corroborate the relation between velar height and tongue height in vowels, which has been established by cineradiographic research. It is argued that the velograph records relative velar height in the speech continuum with reasonable accuracy. Two ways of calibrating the device are proposed so as to allow the measurement of absolute velar elevation (from rest position).

The most common vowel system in Australian languages and the system ancestral to other Australian vowel systems is the triangular system /i-u-a/, with or without phonemic length. This paper shows that this is not appropriate for Andegerebenha, considers the suitability of a two-vowel system /a-a/, and rejects this in favour of one vowel plus length /a-a·/ The short vowel is greatly influenced in quality by the adjacent consonants; the longer one much less so. The consonant inventory is augmented by the addition of a number of labialised consonants, which embody the rounding of earlier *u. Conversely, the phoneme/γ/, a velar glide, was introduced when an earlier *w acquired the feature [-round] of adjacent vowels.