Changes in Vocal Fundamental Frequency at the Segmental Level

Control During Voiced Fricatives

in addition to cycle-by-cycle (jitter) and long-term (intonation contour and declination) changes, vocal fundamental frequency (F₀) is known to vary during moments of production of individual phones. This study explored the relationship between intra-oral pressure and F₀ during the production of the English voiced fricatives /v/, /z/, /ð/, and //. Target words were embedded in a carrier phrase spoken with three different patterns of sentence stress. F₀ changed at a mean rate of -3.59 Hz/cmH₂O and -7.96 Hz/cmH₂O in men and women, respectively. No significant difference was observed among the different fricatives nor among the several stress patterns. A significant sex effect, not observed in a prior related study, was eliminated by conversion of the F₀ data to semitones. The observed magnitudes of the ratios of F₀ change to pressure Change are consistent with Several earlier studies that explored the effect of passive transglottal pressure changes on F₀. The present findings imply that, although F₀ regulation is involved in the generation of different intonation contours, the laryngeal system is not compensated to maintain F₀ in the face of the transitory changes in vocal-tract aerodynamics that accompany voiced fricative production.