The term stiff voice describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening narrower, and the vocal cords stiffer, than what occurs in "normal" (modal) voice. Although there is no specific IPA diacritic for stiff voice, the voicing diacritic (a subscript wedge) may be used in conjunction with the symbol for a voiced consonant. One language with stiff voice is Thai:
Another language with elements of stiff voice is Korean, with its "tense" consonants. However, with the Korean sounds there is something more than just a phonation difference; the entire vocal tract is tenser, and the occlusion lasts longer than other consonants. For this reason they could also be called fortis, one of the rare occasions where the use of this word would be justified. There is no diacritic for fortis in the standard IPA, but in the Extended IPA there is a diacritic for "strong articulation" (a subscript double stroke) that could be used. There is disagreement as to which is the defining property of these sounds. A tenuis consonant is one which is unvoiced and unaspirated. ... See: Aspiration (phonetics) Aspiration (medicine) Aspiration (long-term hope) - see for example, Robert Goddards response to the ridicule by the New York Times, 1920: Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace. ... Fortis may refer to a Canadian company, see Fortis Inc. ...
The changes in voice source behavior may be associated with segmental or suprasegmental elements on the linguistic layer of communication.
It is rather striking that the tense/lax voice opposition (in the sense of the degree of overall muscular tension) is used linguistically (Maddieson and Ladefoged, 1985).
Hoarseness is a term used to explain the perceived voice abnormality as originating at a voice source rather than resulting from abnormalities in vocal tract configuration and is perceptually related to the noise generation during phonation.
The term slack voice (or lax voice) describes the pronunciation of consonants with a glottal opening slightly wider than that occurring in "normal" (modal) voice.
Although the IPA has no dedicated diacritic for slack voice, the voiceless diacritic (the under-ring) may be used.
The Shanghainese "muddy" consonants are also slack voice, the primary effect of which is a slightly breathy quality of the following vowel:
Feeds |
Contact