Ela Thurgood
Tone, phonation, and vowel quality in Hainan Cham
The paper presents a study of Hainan Cham tonal pitches, phonation and F0 of high and low vowels. It shows that the F0 differences between high and low vowels in nonmodal phonations are considerably beyond what mechanics of speech production automatically produce pointing to a non-mechanical enhancement. Specifically, an association with falsetto results in an exaggerated F0 of a high vowel, and consequently, an exaggerated F0 difference between high and low vowels for high tones. An association with a laryngealized phonation enhances F0 difference by lowering the F0 of a low vowel found in Hainan Cham low and mid tones.