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This paper presents the results of an articulatory study of palatalized consonants in Polish, a language with a typologically rare concentration of two phonemic series of posterior sibilants, one inherently palatalized, and the other contextually (allophonically) palatalized. For both phonemic and allophonic palatalization in Polish, it was found that the most stable correlates of palatalization are the advancement of the tongue root and a combined effect of raising and fronting of the tongue body. The advancement of the tongue root can be interpreted as the driving force in palatalization, while the effect of tongue body fronting and raising can be seen as secondary, resulting from the movement of the tongue root and the characteristic of the tongue as a muscular hydrostat.

Upper Sorbian, an endangered West Slavic language spoken in Germany, is unusual among Slavic languages in having a uvular rhotic /ʀ/. This paper focuses on the gestural configuration and coarticulatory resistance of the uvular rhotic and explores the relation between the articulation and acoustics of this sound. Ultrasound tongue imaging data were collected from six native speakers of Upper Sorbian, who produced /ʀ/ in word-initial, intervocalic, and word-final positions next to the vowels /e a o/. Smoothing Spline ANOVAs were used to compare tongue contours within and across phonetic contexts. Differences in the tongue root and tongue body position were also calculated across environments and compared using a measure of coarticulatory resistance. The results revealed that the sound was produced with considerable tongue root retraction and a uvular-pharyngeal tongue body constriction. The tongue root had a high resistance to coarticulatory effects, while the tongue body did not. The results suggest that the tongue root retraction into the pharyngeal cavity results in observed high F1 and low F2 effects associated with unpalatalized rhotic consonants and may explain perceptual similarity between uvular and alveolar rhotics. Articulatory constraints on the tongue root also account for phonotactic distribution of the rhotics across languages.

In this article, one proved case of flaccid tongue treated by Guan's tongue acupuncture was introduced by the three-step method of “puncture, prick, and swallowing”. This case was an elderly female patient with Parkinson disease, which had the main clinical symptoms of flaccid and weak tongue, and speech and swallowing disorder, and was diagnosed as flaccid tongue (deficiency of the both qi and blood, and deficiency syndrome of liver and kidney). The patient received diagnosis and treatment based on an overall analysis of its dialectical characteristics, using the five acupoints of Heart, Jīnjīn (金津 EX-HN12), Yuye (玉液 EX-HN13), Tongue root acupoint 1, and Tongue root acupoint 2 in total. First, the four acupoints of EX-HN12, EX-HN13, Tongue root acupoint 1, and Tongue root acupoint 2 were punctured successively, and then using the reinforcing method, the Heart on the tongue surface was pricked. Finally, the patient was advised to make a slow swallowing action. Through tongue acupuncture therapy for 6 times, the patient's speech and swallowing function was improved, which achieved a satisfactory therapeutic effects.

Voiced stops tend to be preceded by longer vowels and produced with a more advanced tongue root than voiceless stops. The duration of a vowel is affected by the voicing of the stop that follows, and in many languages vowels are longer when followed by voiced stops. Tongue root advancement is known to be an articulatory mechanism, which ensures the right pressure conditions for the maintenance of voicing during closure as dictated by the aerodynamic voicing constraint. In this paper, it is argued that vowel duration and tongue root advancement have a direct statistical relationship. Drawing from acoustic and ultrasound tongue imaging data from 17 speakers of Italian and Polish in total, it is proposed that the comparatively later closure onset of voiced stops is responsible for both greater root advancement and shorter closure durations of voiced stops. It is further shown that tongue root advancement is initiated during the vowel, and vowel duration and tongue root position at vowel offset are positively correlated so that longer vowel durations correspond to greater tongue root advancement.

Vowels in Ateso, an Eastern Nilotic language, are subject to Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) harmony. Accordingly, the vowels are divided into two harmony sets which differ in terms of tongue root position. The two sets of tongue root position are the Advanced Tongue Root [+ATR] set and the Retracted Tongue Root [-ATR] set. Comparably, Bari and Lutuko, related Eastern Nilotic languages, have a ten-vowel system consisting of five closed and five open vowels, with clearly discernible laws of ATR vowel harmony (Tucker & Bryan 1966ː 444). A similar system applies to Ateso which has the following nine phonemic vowels: /i ɪ e ɛ u ʊ o ɔ a/ and the phonetic vowel [ä]. The presence of the [ä] variant is conditioned by neighbouring [+ATR] vowels or glides, and hence does not have phonemic status; instead, it is treated as an allophone of /a/. In this paper, I follow the general discussion of vowel harmony in African languages (e.g. by Casali (2003, 2008)), albeit in Ateso. Firstly, I introduce the Ateso vowel articulatory parameters and the phonetic realisation of /a/. Secondly, I show that in Ateso /a/ behaves like an underlying [-ATR] vowel and that, generally, though the ATR affects tongue height and thereby accounts for the relative tongue height, ATR is not a category of tongue height but rather of the position of the tongue root. Lastly, I demonstrate that Ateso ATR vowel harmony has two dimensions. One is the condition that vowels ideally belong to a [-ATR] or [+ATR] set within a word and the second is that there is a dynamic dimension where ATR qualities may change as a result of affixation.Keywords: ATR, assimilation, vowel harmony, Ateso, Nilotic

The incidence of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck remains high and ranks tenth in the structure of overall cancer morbidity. Surgical radicality has remained one of the major determinants of the long-term results of treatment so far. In the period December 2014 to January 2016, our clinic performed surgical interventions as transoral laser oral cavity and oropharyngeal resections using carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) laser in 34 patients. Tumors are most commonly located in the area of the tongue root and oropharynx in 16 (47.1 %) patients, tongue (its anterior two thirds) in 14 (41.2 %), and mouth floor in 4 (11.7 %). The average length of hospital stay after transoral laser resections was 10.14 days. A nasogastric tube was postoperatively placed in 6 (17.6 %) patients for 8 to 17 days. According to the results of planned histological examination, surgical interventions were microscopically radical in all cases. Transoral CO 2 laser resections make possible to perform rather large radical surgical interventions with a satisfactory functional and cosmetic results, without deteriorating the long-term results of treatment.

Clicks differ from pulmonic stops in that, in addition to containing lingual gestures that shape the filtering mechanism of the vocal tract, they also contain lingual “rarefaction gestures” that form the source of the lingual ingressive airstream. The current study uses mid-sagittal lingual ultrasound imaging to investigate (1) overall tongue shape, (2) tongue dorsum and root positions, and (3) dynamic rarefaction gestures involving the tongue dorsum and root, in the four coronal click types recognized by the IPA. The study provides quantitative evidence that the four click types differ in overall tongue shape. Additionally, results show that the palatal click has a farther back dorsal constriction than the three pre-palatal clicks, and the tongue root is raised and bunched in the upper pharynx in one variant of the palatal click, but involves retraction of the tongue root proper in the lower pharynx in the alveolar click. A second variant of the palatal click involves posterior gestures more similar to those found in the alveolar click. Results provide evidence that the kinematics of the posterior part of the tongue are important in describing click production, and shed light on synchronic and diachronic sound patterns involving the palatal click in Kx’a languages.

A common analysis for Arabic emphatics and pharyngeals posits that their commonalities are due to the shared feature [RTR]. This, however, does not account for some phonological processes, and does not reflect their phonetic representation. This study provides ultrasound evidence that emphatics and pharyngeals do not exhibit a similar retraction of the tongue. Results indicate that while tongue retraction for the emphatics is characterized with simultaneous tongue dorsum and root retraction, the pharyngeals lower the tongue dorsum. Unlike the pharyngeals, the tongue root retraction of the emphatics and uvulars is always posterior to the tongue root position of the inter-speech posture. Such a consistent and significant displacement confirms that [RTR] is an active feature for the emphatics and uvulars. This is also evident from the retraction of following low vowels triggered by the emphatics and uvulars. These phonetic findings suggest that the pharyngeals and emphatics have different phonological representations.

This article investigates the acoustic and articulatory correlates of vowel contrasts in bilingual speakers. We analyse data from bilingual speakers of Twi (Akan) and Ghanaian English, with the aim of examining how the production of the advanced tongue root vowel contrast in Twi relates to the production of the tense/lax vowel contrast in Ghanaian English. These data are compared to tense/lax vowel data from monolingual British English speakers. The acoustic results show that Twi and Ghanaian English mainly rely on F1 for distinguishing [ATR] and [TENSE] vowels, whereas British English uses F1, F2, F3 and duration for the [TENSE] contrast. The ultrasound tongue imaging data show tongue root distinctions across all languages, while there are consistent tongue height distinctions in British English, no height distinctions in Ghanaian English, and small height distinctions for some vowels in Twi. Twi has the weakest correlation between F1 and tongue root advancement, which suggests that the [ATR] contrast may involve additional strategies for pharyngeal cavity expansion that are not present in [TENSE] vowels. In doing so, we show that bilinguals produce similar contrasts in similar ways across their two languages, but that language-specific differences also persist, which may reflect different articulatory goals in each language.

The morphology of the lingual papillae in a female Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) was examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The tongue was 22.3 cm in length and 7.1 cm in width. Numerous filiform papillae were distributed over the entire dorsal surface of the tongue. SEM examination of the tongue revealed two types of mechanical papillae, i.e. filiform and conical papilla, and two types of gustatory papillae, i.e. fungiform and vallate papilla, on the dorsal surface of the tongue. Each filiform papilla consisted of one primary papilla and several secondary papillae. The filiform papillae on the anterior part of the tongue were divided into one primary and 6~14 secondary papillae. Unlike other mammalians, however, secondary papillae in the mid-part of the tongue showed pineal-like papillae. In the posterior part of the tongue, secondary papillae were rare or absent. Fungiform papillae were surrounded by filiform papillae and densely distributed on the lingual surface. There were two vallate papillae on the borderline between the lingual body and root of the tongue. A vallate papilla contained two secondary papillae inside the grooves. Conical papillae were located in the area of the vallate papillae and covered the posterior part of the tongue root. No foliate papillae were seen on both margins of the posterior part of the tongue. Our results indicate that the structure on the lingual papillae of the Bengal tiger is somewhat different from that of other mammals.

Human tongue has complex structure and involves in chewing function, such as transporting and mixing foods. In order to develop tongue block of the bionic chewing equipment to make the food materials slide from the lingual surface to the tooth surface as much as possible in the same time, three-dimensional model of tongue block was built according to the geometric shape and physiology characteristic of the human tongue. The discrete element method was used to simulate the whole delivery process of food materials to teeth area, and then the geometrical parameters of the tongue block were optimized. The simulated results showed that when the height of the tongue tip and the tongue root were fixed, the optimal slope angles which have the decisive effect on the process of food materials slide were 32°and 2° respectively. The results provided a theoretical basis for the processing of tongue block of the bionic chewing equipment.

Tongue root advancement facilitates voicing during stop closure by enlarging the supralaryngeal cavity volume (Westbury, 1983). In a recent ultrasound study, Ahn (2018) reports that tongue is indeed more advanced during voiced than voiceless stops both in English and Brazilian Portuguese, suggesting that the articulatory adjustment aligns more with the abstract laryngeal distinctions than their acoustic implementation—the "voiced” stops are typically not phonated in English but in Brazilian Portuguese. This study, using ultrasound, compares tongue positioning during Seoul Korean (SK) stops of three laryngeal categories: lenis, fortis, and aspirated. All three categories are voiceless phrase-initially, with the lenis being voiced intervocalically (Jun, 1993). This study asks whether (1) SK lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops have different tongue configurations when none are phonated and (2) the intervocalic voicing of lenis stops leads to tongue root advancement. Nine native SK speakers recorded phrase-initial and intervocalic stops. Results: lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops did not show different tongue position in phrase-initial positions. In intervocalic positions, lenis stops, acoustically voiced during closure, did not show more tongue root advancement than other types of stops. These results suggest that SK speakers use tongue positioning neither for laryngeal contrast nor as an adjustment for allophonic voicing of intervocalic lenis stops.Tongue root advancement facilitates voicing during stop closure by enlarging the supralaryngeal cavity volume (Westbury, 1983). In a recent ultrasound study, Ahn (2018) reports that tongue is indeed more advanced during voiced than voiceless stops both in English and Brazilian Portuguese, suggesting that the articulatory adjustment aligns more with the abstract laryngeal distinctions than their acoustic implementation—the "voiced” stops are typically not phonated in English but in Brazilian Portuguese. This study, using ultrasound, compares tongue positioning during Seoul Korean (SK) stops of three laryngeal categories: lenis, fortis, and aspirated. All three categories are voiceless phrase-initially, with the lenis being voiced intervocalically (Jun, 1993). This study asks whether (1) SK lenis, fortis, and aspirated stops have different tongue configurations when none are phonated and (2) the intervocalic voicing of lenis stops leads to tongue root advancement. Nine native SK speakers recorded phrase-ini...

The distribution and structure of the lingual papillae on rabbit tongue were studied in relation toits feeding habits by means of light and scanning electron microscopy. The tongue of rabbit is ofabout 5 cm in length and 9 mm in width. The dorsal surface of the tongue is differentiated intofour regions according to the nature of papillae; apex, body, lingual torus (intermolarprominence) and root. On the surface of the apex and body of the tongue there are four maintypes of papillae: filiform, fungiform, vallate and foliate papillae. The filiform one can bedifferentiated morphologically into five sub types of variable size and shape according to theirlocation. Fungiform papillae are numerous on the anterior part of the tongue. They are ellipticalor circular in shape and embedded in between filiform ones. In this region both filiform andfungiform are devoid of taste buds indicating their mechanoreceptive function. Two oval vallatepapillae with numerous taste buds are situated on the side wall of the tongue root, elucidatingtheir chemoreceptive role. A Pair of patches having well developed foliate papillae is observedin the latero-posterior part of the tongue. Each is oval in shape and has several parallel papillaelacking taste buds and may separate by shallow grooves. Histological observation indicateskeratinization of the dorsal surface of the tongue with variable degrees.

In order to clarify the dynamic mechanisms involved in sucking by infants, we developed an artificial nipple with built-in force sensors and have measured the contact force between the tongue and the artificial nipple in infants including healthy, premature and low birth weight. In this study, we measured the force applied by the tongue on the artificial nipple in 10 healthy infants and in 10 infants who were also tube-fed and investigated the differences in dynamic actions between the two groups to extract factors involved in satisfactory sucking. The results showed that differences in the maximum force applied and in the time to reach the maximum force were found between infants with and without established oral feeding. For an infant to suck satisfactorily, 1) the time for the force to propagate from the tongue tip to the tongue root needs to constitute at least 8 % of the sucking period and 2) the force applied at the tongue tip needs to be at least 50% of the force at the tongue root.

O mão-pelada é um mamífero da família Procyonidae com poucas descrições anatômicas detalhadas a seu respeito. O objetivo deste trabalho foi descrever, anatomicamente, a língua do mão-pelada, proporcionando base para futuros estudos clínico-cirúrgicos, além de contribuir com a anatomia comparada de carnívoros. Foram utilizadas as línguas de dois exemplares de mãos-pelada, fixados em formaldeído a 10%. A língua do mão-pelada possui, em média, 9,5cm de comprimento, é alongada e apresenta um sulco mediano pouco evidente. Possui lissa, quatro pares de papilas valadas na raiz lingual e um par no corpo, várias papilas fungiformes e cônicas no corpo e raiz e papilas filiformes pouco desenvolvidas e presentes principalmente no ápice. Outros três pares de papilas, sugestivas de serem papilas valadas, foram observadas na região lateral da base lingual. A língua do mão-pelada possui algumas características anatômicas similares às do cão, como a presença da lissa e a disposição das papilas, com exceção das folhadas, as quais não foram observadas.

The tongue body of Rhea americana is triangular and partially pigmented with each caudo-lateral margin displaying a round, sub-divided lingual papilla. The tongue root is a smooth, non-pigmented tract of mucosa. The tongue body is supported by the paraglossum and distal half of the rostral projection of the basihyal (RPB), and the tongue root by the proximal half of the RPB, body of the basihyal and proximal ceratobranchials. An urohyal is absent; however, peculiar to R. americana, the caudal margin of the cricoid body displays a median projection, which may represent the remnant of the urohyal incorporated into the cricoid. The laryngeal mound is less elevated, the arytenoid cartilages are smaller than in other ratites, and the caudal margin displays pharyngeal papillae that vary in shape and number. The unique morphology of the lingual skeleton and its positioning within the tongue of R. americana, the rostral insertion of the M. ceratoglossus, the absence of the urohyal (enhanced ventroflexion) and the caudal positioning and mobile attachment of the ensheathed basihyal to the paraglossum would appear to allow independent movement of the tongue body relative to the hyobranchial apparatus. Additionally, the deeply indented base and rostral oval opening in the paraglossum limits the length of cartilage present in the midline of the tongue body. This may allow the tongue the necessary flexibility for the lingual papillae to clean the choana. The cleaning action of the tongue would occur simultaneously with the previously described role of this organ and associated structures during feeding. Thus, the so-called reduced, ancestral tongue of R. americana may be structurally and functionally more complex than previously believed.

In order to identify the nature of the emphatic consonants and the articulatory features accompanying their production, 384 videofluoroscopic images of 2 male and 2 female Jordanian speakers were analyzed. Analysis focused on the differences between nonemphatic and emphatic consonants in the pharyngeal length and width, the hyoid bone elevation and larynx raising. Results show that males and females produce emphatics as pharyngealized sounds with the tongue root retracting into the oropharynx and the hyoid bone elevating and the larynx raising as a result.

The ostrich's tongue is situated in the posterior part of the oropharyngeal cavity and its length is only about a quarter of the beak cavity. The triangular shortened tongue has retained the usual division into the apex, the body and the root. There are no conical papillae between the body and the root of the tongue, and the presence of the flat fold with lateral processes sliding over the tongue root in the posterior part of the lingual body is a unique morphological feature. All lingual mucosa covers non-keratinised stratified epithelium, and the lamina propria of the mucosa is filled with mucous glands whose round or semilunar openings are found on both the dorsal and ventral surface of the tongue. The complex glands found in the lingual body are composed of alveoli and/or tubules. Moreover, simple tubular glands seen in the posterior part of the tongue root are an exception. Numerous observations have shown that the ostrich's tongue is a modified structure, though not a rudimentary one, whose main function is to produce the secretion moisturising the beak cavity surface and the ingested semidry plant food in this savannah species.

Clinical investigators working in a number of languages have noted that rhotics develop late and are subject to clinically significant misarticulations. The English rhotic approximant and the Spanish rhotic trill exhibit tongue shape differentiation between a primary constriction along the palate and a secondary constriction in the pharynx. This differentiation is often missing in misarticulations. In this work, we speculate whether the secondary pharyngeal articulation seen in English might also be a cross-linguistic characteristic of rhotics and thus potentially a factor in articulatory delays and misarticulations. We describe an exploratory study analyzing rhotic tongue configurations in ultrasound videos from a small sample of native adult speakers of English, Malayalam, French, Persian and Spanish. Our findings confirm that rhotic sounds most likely to show late mastery and misarticulation also involve tongue root movement toward a pharyngeal constriction, but this conclusion must remain tentative without further research. In the meantime, clinical strategies that include attention to tongue root as well as tongue front configuration (such as facilitative contexts with tongue root movement) may be worth exploring in remediation of rhotic misarticulations across languages.

This is an acoustic and articulatory study of Canadian French rhotic vowels, i.e., mid front rounded vowels /ø œ̃ œ/ produced with a rhotic perceptual quality, much like English [ɚ] or [ɹ], leading heureux, commun, and docteur to sound like [ɚʁɚ], [kɔmɚ̃], and [dɔktaɹʁ]. Ultrasound, video, and acoustic data from 23 Canadian French speakers are analyzed using several measures of mid-sagittal tongue contours, showing that the low F3 of rhotic vowels is achieved using bunched and retroflex tongue postures and that the articulatory-acoustic mapping of F1 and F2 are rearranged in systems with rhotic vowels. A subset of speakers' French vowels are compared with their English [ɹ]/[ɚ], revealing that the French vowels are consistently less extreme in low F3 and its articulatory correlates, even for the most rhotic speakers. Polar coordinates are proposed as a replacement for Cartesian coordinates in calculating smoothing spline comparisons of mid-sagittal tongue shapes, because they enable comparisons to be roughly perpendicular to the tongue surface, which is critical for comparisons involving tongue root position but appropriate for all comparisons involving mid-sagittal tongue contours.

Gross and microscopic examination of the tongue and hyolingual apparatus of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) revealed numerous dis-tinct differences from those of other toothed whales and dolphins, largely reflecting the tongue’s atypi-cal position, relations, and size, and its primary role in suction ingestion, rather than prey prehen-sion or transport, as in many other odontocetes. Unlike other odontocetes, the sperm whale has a short, wide tongue that is uniquely situated at the rear of the open oral cavity. Since the tongue does not extend to the tooth row, which runs along the elongated median mandibular symphysis, it cannot easily reorient grasped prey items, yet it can posi-tion them to be swallowed or sucked directly into the oropharyngeal opening. The scarcity of intrin-sic lingual musculature (m. lingualis proprius), coupled with the relatively large paired extrinsic muscles inserting in the tongue—notably the m. hyoglossus, whose profuse fibers comprise much of the tongue root, and the m. genioglossus—suggests the tongue mainly undergoes positional, rather than shape, changes as it is retracted by the hyoid to generate negative intraoral pressures to capture and ingest prey items via suction. The tongue possesses numerous longitudinal folds or plicae, but almost no free tip; its slightly convex dorsum bears deep fissures and few sensory receptors in a multilayered and predominantly aglandular horny epithelium.Key Words: sperm whale, Physeter macrocepha-lus, tongue, hyoid, myology, morphology, suction feeding

Standard Polish has a typologically relatively rare contrast between “hard” post-alveolar affricates and fricatives, transcribed by Ladefoged and Disner (2012) as (/tṣ, dẓ, ṣ, ẓ/ and “soft” alveolo-palatal affricates and fricatives (IPA transcription /tɕ, dʑ, ɕ, ʑ /). The hard post-alveolars are notoriously ambiguous—phonetically they are neither sense stricto retroflexes (though some authors adopt such an analysis based on phonological arguments, e.g., Hamann 2003) nor typical palatoalveolars. Additionally, the “hard” post-alveoalars can be allophonically palatalized in the context of [i]. Multiple approaches have been proposed to differentiate the hard and soft series, all of them primarily focusing on the shape of the body of the tongue, including the level of raising of the body of the tongue, the place of articulation, and the length of the constriction. In this study, we present 3-D tongue shapes of the consonants. The 3D ultrasound images—besides additional details of the shape of the tongue body—reveal a consistent difference in terms of the tongue root position, with a fronting of the tongue root and a pronounced groove along the center of the tongue in the root part of the tongue for prepalatals and no such fronting for the “hard” post-alveolars.Standard Polish has a typologically relatively rare contrast between “hard” post-alveolar affricates and fricatives, transcribed by Ladefoged and Disner (2012) as (/tṣ, dẓ, ṣ, ẓ/ and “soft” alveolo-palatal affricates and fricatives (IPA transcription /tɕ, dʑ, ɕ, ʑ /). The hard post-alveolars are notoriously ambiguous—phonetically they are neither sense stricto retroflexes (though some authors adopt such an analysis based on phonological arguments, e.g., Hamann 2003) nor typical palatoalveolars. Additionally, the “hard” post-alveoalars can be allophonically palatalized in the context of [i]. Multiple approaches have been proposed to differentiate the hard and soft series, all of them primarily focusing on the shape of the body of the tongue, including the level of raising of the body of the tongue, the place of articulation, and the length of the constriction. In this study, we present 3-D tongue shapes of the consonants. The 3D ultrasound images—besides additional details of the shape of the tongue body—r...

In American English, phonologically voiced stops are often phonetically voiceless in utterance-initial position. Other than Westbury (1983), there is little articulatory evidence regarding utterance-initial voicing in American English. The current study uses ultrasound imaging and acoustic measures to examine how tongue position correlates with phonation in American English, comparing phonated voiced stops, unphonated voiced stops, and voiceless stops in utterance-initial position. Eight speakers of American English recorded voiced/voiceless stops at three places of articulation (labial, alveolar, and velar). One adjustment for initiating or maintaining phonation during the closure is enlarging the supraglottal cavity volume primarily via tongue root advancement. In utterance-initial position, there was a clear distinction between voiced stops and voiceless stops in the tongue root for the alveolar and velar places of articulation. Even without acoustic phonation during closure, the tongue root is advance...

We are employing real-time MRI to probe the speech production patterns of a speaker with congenital aglossia, a rare syndrome in which an individual is born without a tongue. The speaker being studied has only a small stump-like tongue rudiment in the region of the tongue root and a hypertrophied floor of the mouth (mylohyoid) and base of the tongue. Nevertheless, the speaker has acquired the ability to produce highly intelligible speech. One initial finding is that the speaker, in the absence of a tongue tip, produces plosive consonants that are perceptually similar to /t/ and /d/ by using a bilabial constriction with a significantly increased anteroposterior extent (relative to her /p/ or /b/ productions). Our aim is to provide an articulatory-acoustic account of this compensatory strategy via detailed analysis of her production strategies as evidenced in the real-time MRI data and via simulations using an articulatory synthesizer. We examine whether the increased anteroposterior extent of the bilabial ...

Articulatory adjustments are often necessary to ensure that closure voicing will be present in stops (Rothenberg 1968). One common adjustment is to enlarge the supralaryngeal cavity volume via tongue root advancement (Westbury 1983). This study uses ultrasound to examine tongue positioning during Brazilian Portuguese and Thai stops. Portuguese has a two-way laryngeal contrast: voiced and voiceless (unaspirated), and Thai has a three-way contrast: voiced, voiceless unaspirated, and voiceless aspirated. Eight native speakers of each language recorded phrase-initial stops followed by /a/. Results show a clear distinction in tongue position between voiced and voiceless unaspirated stops in both languages. Tongue root is more advanced for voiced compared to voiceless unaspirated in alveolar and velar stops. For labial stops, Thai speakers lower the tongue front (which is another cavity enlargement maneuver) whereas Portuguese speakers advance their tongue root for voiced stops. The results suggest that speaker...

The morpho-structural characteristics of the vallate papillae of the tongue of rat, dog, donkey and buffalo were investigated by macroscopy and their microstructure by light and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The numbers of vallate papillae varied among the different species. In rat, a single vallate papilla surrounded by incomplete groove and an annular fold was observed. Taste buds were detected along the entire length of the medial and lateral groove epithelium, but not in the papillary dome. In dog, some papillae lacking the annular pad had irregular ridges and grooves toward the center of the papillary surface, while other papillae had small secondary papillary grooves arising from the center of the papilla. Taste buds were located in the medial and lateral epithelium of both primary and secondary grooves as well as in the dome epithelium. In donkey, two papillae were frequently observed around the midline of the tongue root, and an additional papilla was found occasionally in the middle and associated with secondary papilla. In buffalo, several papillae were relatively small and variable in shape. With SEM, small ridges and grooves were found in the papillae of donkey and buffalo. In both species, taste buds were constantly observed along the medial wall epithelium, but no taste buds were found in the lateral wall. We conclude that the vallate papillae exhibited peculiar characteristics, which are species specific and might have a correlation with the variable feeding habits among these animals.

C-V coarticulation in monosyllabic words containing initial clicks and /i:/ vowels is investigated in Mangetti Dune !Xung with 114 fps lingual ultrasound and acoustic data collected using the CHAUSA method (Miller and Finch 2011). The 114 fps rate yields an image of the tongue every 9 ms (+/-4.5 ms). Vowels following clicks have three lingual gestures involving the tongue tip/blade (TT), tongue body (TB) and tongue root (TR). TT and TB constrictions carried over from the clicks merge into a single vowel constriction at consonant specific rates. The second formant (F2) distinguishes each word type through the vowel midpoint. In regression analyses, TBCL and TRCL best predict F2 for alveolar click initial words, while TTCL best predicts F2 for dental / palatal click initial words. The more open constriction is acoustically inert. In the palatal click initial word, both constrictions are equally close for some speakers, and the gestures undergo blending (Browman and Goldstein 1990). I argue that these patter...

To improve the skill of speaking a second language (L2), one good way may be to be aware of the underlying tongue position for a language. We focused on such underlying position differences between English and French, particularly when pausing for a short time between speaking; something called inter-speech posture (ISP). In past research, Wilson and Gick investigated ISP between English and French spoken by bilinguals. In that research, bilinguals had distinct articulatory settings for each language, mostly in the lips. However, their tongue data was for only 4 points of articulatory settings: distance from the ultrasound probe to tongue root, tongue dorsum, tongue body, and tongue tip, but not overall shape. Furthermore, to measure tongue tip position, past research relied on the alveolar ridge, which is unclear to see: possibly making the results inaccurate for tongue tip. In this study, we analyzed the whole shape of the tongue and made models of them using SS-ANOVA in R so that we could compare the d...

A contrast between tense and lax vowels is a main feature of many Tibeto-Burman (TB) languages spoken in Southwest China. This study investigated the articulation and acoustics of tense-lax contrast in two Northern Yi dialects: Suondi and Yinuo. Both dialects have five pairs of phonologically-defined tense and lax vowels. Previous studies have shown that tense and lax vowels in TB had distinct patterns in phonation types and f0, while the difference in other acoustic dimensions—vowel quality, duration, and intensity are rarely examined, and the difference in the lingual gestures is largely unknown. The current study examined the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of tense-lax contrast using ultrasound imaging and spectrogram analysis. Our preliminary results showed that articulatorily, tense vowels were produced with more retracted tongue root. Acoustically, tense vowels had higher F1 and lower F2, which was caused by the lowered and retracted tongue position. The intensity of tense vowels was lowe...

We performed a macroscopic and microscopic study of the tongues of common opossums, Didelphis marsupialis, from South America. We studied two males and two females. We collected morphometric data on the tongue with precision calipers. For the light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy analyses, we fixed tissue fragments in 10% formaldehyde and 2.5% glutaraldehyde, respectively. The opossum tongues averaged 5.87 ± 0.20 cm in length, 3.27 ± 0.15 cm in width at the lingual body, and 3.82 ± 0.15 cm in width at the root. The mean thickness of the lingual body was 1.8 ± 0.1 cm, and the thickness of the root was 3.82 ± 0.15 cm. Sharp filiform papillae were scattered across the entire tongue; conical filiform papillae occurred on the lingual body and tongue tip; fungiform papillae were scattered among the filiform papillae on the lingual body and tongue tip; and there were three vallate papillae at the root of the tongue. We found two strands of papillary projections in the tongue root. Despite the low variability observed in the lingual papillae, the morphological data obtained in this study may be related to the opossum's diverse food habits and the extensive geographic distribution of the species throughout America.

We studied the arteries of the tongue of Sus scrofa domestica (Linnaeus, 1758) from 20 animals whose tongues were slaughtered while fresh and kept cooled (4oC) for transportation. The blood vessels of 15 animals were flowed with water (37oC), injected with stained latex, fixated with phormaldeid and dissected with magnifying glass. We injected 5 tongues with air and acetone PA; later, we injected again with air and at last with vinyl stained acetate. The material was put in water for 24 h and, after this, submerged in sulfuric acid 30% for two weeks to reveal the arterial system mold. The arteries provided dorsal, ventral and collateral branches in the following way: dorsal branches at the tongue root - three branches (50%), four branches (46.6%), five branches (3.4%); arrangements of the following dorsal and ventral branches at the tongue body - one ventral and two dorsal (46.6%), one ventral and three dorsal (23.3%), one ventral and one dorsal (23.3%), one ventral and four dorsal (3.4%) and one ventral branch (3.4%). At the lingual apex, the artery was parallel between antimers, made a medial curve, and reached the counter-lateral artery, establishing anastomoses by inosculation, forming arterial islands from which radial branches to the tip of the tongue were originated. KEYWORDS: lingual arteries; pigs; Sus scrofa domestica; swine; tongue.

Akan has a vowel harmony system which contrasts two sets of vowels, distinguished by whether the tongue root is advanced or retracted. This paper first examines acoustic correlates of the distinguishing phonetic feature of Advanced Tongue Root (ATR), in order to find a reliable diagnostic, which was then used to examine two questions about the nature of assimilation between vowels of the contrasting harmony sets: Is vowel assimilation complete or partial? And is assimilation implemented gradiently over more than one syllable? Addressing these questions first required that we find a measure which would provide a reliable diagnosis of vowel type. Four acoustic measures were considered: formant frequency, formant bandwidth, vowel duration, and relative amplitude of spectral components. The two measures most strongly correlated with [ATR] set affiliation are F1, frequency and F1, bandwidth. However, as shifts in the frequency of the first formant could also be ascribed to differences in tongue height, bandwidth differences are more reliably an indication of the difference between [ATR] sets. This measure was then used to examine the behavior of the mid, [− ATR] vowel /e/ in assimilation and non-assimilation environments. Bandwidth measurements of /e/ in the assimilation environment suggest that it is produced in the same manner as [+ ATR] vowels, that is, assimilation for tongue root position was complete. Analysis of the vowels in the word /adaka/ in various frames shows that assimilation is limited to the syllable immediately preceding the assimilation environment.

We provide high-speed ultrasound data on the four Mangetti DuneXung clicks. The posterior constriction is uvular for all four clicks—front uvular for ( � � ) and (� ) and back uvular for (�� ) and (�� ). (�� ) and (�� ) both involve tongue center lowering and tongue root retraction as part of the rarefaction gestures. The rarefaction gestures in (� � ) and (� ) involve tongue center lowering. Lingual cavity volume is largest for (�� ), followed by (�� ), (� ) and ( � � ). A tongue tip recoil effect is found following (�� ), but the effect is smaller than that seen in IsiXhosa in earlier studies.

The role which the pharynx plays in the production of speech sounds has long been the subject of debate, in particular as regards the independence of the pharynx from other speech articulators and in particular the larynx. Given that the linguistic and anatomical information about the larynx and the pharynx is quite complex, the objective of this paper is to review the literature relevant to the relationship between these two articulators and to recast some of this information in terms of current articulator-based theories of phonological features such as the ones reviewed in McCarthy (1988). 1 presents two pharyngeal features [ATR/ RTR] ‘advanced tongue root’ and ‘LL/RL’ ‘lowered larynx’separately in two subsections, with definitions, examples and arguments in favour of having two pharyngeal features rather than one. § 2 argues that pharyngeal features are independent of the primary point of articulation features.

In English, phonologically voiced consonants are often phonetically voiceless in utterance-initial position. Other than Westbury (1983), there is little articulatory evidence regarding utterance-initial voicing in American English. The current study uses ultrasound imaging and acoustic measures to examine how tongue position correlates with phonation in American English, comparing phonated voiced stops, unphonated voiced stops, and voiceless stops in utterance-initial position. Eight speakers of American English recorded voiced/voiceless stops at three places of articulation (labial, alveolar, and velar), in three different environments (utterance-initial, post-nasal, and post-fricative), and with two different following vowels (high/low). One adjustment for initiating or maintaining phonation during the closure is enlarging the supraglottal cavity volume primarily via tongue root advancement. In utterance-initial position, there was a clear distinction between voiced stops and voiceless stops in the tongue root for the alveolar and velar places of articulation. Even without acoustic phonation during closure, the tongue root is advanced for voiced stops in comparison to voiceless stops for supraglottal cavity enlargement. These results suggest that speakers have the same target for both phonated and unphonated stops in utterance-initial position (i.e., shorter VOT), but other articulatory adjustments are responsible for the presence or absence of phonation.

It has been argued that Kazakh primarily distinguishes its anterior ("front") vowels from its posterior ("back") vowels through retraction of the tongue root. This analysis is at odds with the traditional assumption that the anteriority of Kazakh vowels is contrasted by tongue body position. The present study uses ultrasound imaging to investigate the extent to which the position of the tongue root and the tongue body are involved in the anteriority contrast in Kazakh. Native speakers of Kazakh were recorded reading words (in carrier sentences) containing target vowels, which were controlled for adjacent consonants and metrical position. An audio recording was also made of these sessions. Frames containing productions of the target vowels were extracted from the ultrasound video and the imaged surface of the tongue was manually traced. Analyses of tongue root and body position were analyzed for each vowel and will be presented together with formant measurements from the audio recordings.

Tongue retraction is rare in native languages of North America. Previous literature on St’at’imcets (also known as Lillooet) has left unanswered the question of how retracted consonants (uvulars, a pharyngeal, and a subset of retracted coronals) are articulated, and whether they in fact involve tongue retraction. Based on perceptual and acoustic data, previous descriptions differ with respect to the involvement of the tongue dorsum and tongue root in the articulation of St’at’imcets retracted consonants, particularly with the orthographic ‘‘g,’’ disputed to be either a uvular or pharyngeal approximant [Shahin, 1997; van Eijk, 1997]. Articulatory data of retracted and nonretracted consonants were collected from 4 St’at’imcets speakers via a portable ultrasound machine. Results indicate a significant difference in tongue root, dorsum, and body position for retracted versus nonretracted consonants, with the former possessing more tongue root and dorsum backing and tongue body lowering than the latter. Furthermore, results show ‘‘g’’ to be articulated similarly to the uvular consonant, with the tongue dorsum moving towards the posterior uvula/upper pharyngeal region of the vocal tract. These results provide direct evidence for the articulatory makeup of St’at’imcets retracted consonants and shed light on St’at’imcets retraction effects and phonological harmony processes. [Work supported by SSHRC.]

We present 114 fps lingual ultrasound data of three speakers’ productions of words containing the initial velar plosive, and the following [a] and [i] vowels, in Mangetti Dune !Xung (N = 95 for [k] in the [a] context, N = 36 for [k] in the [i] context). We traced the midsaggital tongue edge at the frame just prior to the [k] release, and measured the tongue dorsum (TD) and tongue root (TR) constriction locations (CL’s). The TRCL was measured 1 cm below the [k] peak. Results show that [k] in the [i] context has a 1.1 cm further forward TDCL than [k] in the [a] context for one speaker, and 1.2 cm further forward for the second speaker. The results are similar to those found for English by Stevens and House (1963). The TRCL is retracted 0.3 cm in [k] in the [a] context compared with [k] in the [i] context for the first speaker, and 0.6 cm more retracted for the second speaker. A third speaker had a retracted TDCL and TRCL in both vowel contexts. These results confirm that [k] is less resistant to coarticulation. Results show that the tongue root is involved in dorsal-front vowel coarticulation.

Acoustically, there is strong evidence to suggest that achievement of an appropriately low third formant for American English /r/ depends on successful simultaneous production of two vocal tract constrictions by the tongueone constriction by tongue tip or dorsum at the palate and one constriction by tongue root in the pharynx [Tiede et al. (2004); McGowan et al. (2003); Boyce (2008)]. The timing and extent of movement for these constrictions also appear to differ according to pre‐ versus postvocalic word position. In a study of older children with persistent difficulty producing /r/, clinic notes at their initial clinic visit indicate that two‐thirds were missing a pharyngeal constriction during /r/ for at least one of these prosodic conditions. Clinic notes also indicate that improvement in /r/ production was accompanied by achievement of simultaneous palatal and pharyngeal constrictions. In this paper, we report an analysis of the correlation between these subjective clinical observations and more objective ultrasound imaging and acoustic data collected simultaneously on the same subjects during therapy for /r/ production.

The idea of a language‐specific articulatory setting (AS), an underlying posture of the articulators during speech, has existed for centuries [Laver, Historiogr. Ling. 5 (1978)], but until recently it had eluded direct measurement. In an analysis of x‐ray movies of French and English monolingual speakers, Gick et al. [Phonetica (in press)] link AS to inter‐speech posture, allowing measurement of AS without interference from segmental targets during speech, and they give quantitative evidence showing AS to be language‐specific. In the present study, ultrasound and Optotrak are used to investigate whether bilingual English‐French speakers have two ASs, and whether this varies depending on the mode (monolingual or bilingual) these speakers are in. Specifically, for inter‐speech posture of the lips, lip aperture and protrusion are measured using Optotrak. For inter‐speech posture of the tongue, tongue root retraction, tongue body and tongue tip height are measured using optically‐corrected ultrasound. Segmental context is balanced across the two languages ensuring that the sets of sounds before and after an inter‐speech posture are consistent across languages. By testing bilingual speakers, vocal tract morphology across languages is controlled for. Results have implications for L2 acquisition, specifically the teaching and acquisition of pronunciation.

Intrinsic F0 (IF0) is the tendency for high vowels to have higher F0s than low vowels. It is universal and apparently automatic, but the exact mechanism is still unclear. Here, ultrasound measurements of the tongue were used to determine whether vowel height is the best predictor of IF0. Ten native speakers of English spoke keywords for the eleven non‐diphthongal vowels while the lips, jaw, and tongue were imaged with the HOCUS ultrasound/Optotrak system [D. H. Whalen et al., J. Sp. Lang. Hear. Res. (in press)], which tracks the head and lips with optical markers while the tongue is imaged with ultrasound. The tongue edge can be extracted and rotated relative to the head, indicating changes in tongue height and pharyngeal depth. Preliminary analysis indicates that IF0 is better correlated with the most anterior point on the tongue root (indicating pharyngeal depth) than with the highest point on the tongue. It thus seems likely that the shape of the pharynx is more of a determinant than tongue height for IF0. Because pharynx depth and vowel height covary in most languages (including English), the earlier description is somewhat accurate; IF0 may be more accurately described as correlated to the tongue root.

Intrinsic F0 (IF0) is the tendency for high vowels to have a higher F0 than low vowels. While IF0 has been found for every language studied [D. H. Whalen and A. Levitt, J. Phonetics 23, 349–366 (1995)], none of those languages distinctively contrasted advanced tongue root (ATR). Most languages conflate high tongue position with advanced tongue root, but some distinguish vowels by ATR. Here we report on two such languages, Igbo (a Niger‐Congo language of Nigeria) and Kinande (a Bantu language of Congo). Acoustic analysis of F0 in Igbo suggests that +ATR vowels have higher F0s than their ATR counterparts. For Kinande, a combined acoustic and ultrasound study was performed. All five vowels /ieaou/ occur in ±ATR versions. All +ATR vowels except /i/ had higher F0s than their ATR counterparts. Horizontal depth at tongue root (distance from the jaw to the anterior pharyngeal wall) varied with ATR, as expected, and correlated with F0. Height also affected F0, in an amount of the same magnitude as for ATR. Some of IF0 appears to be attributable to pharyngeal shape (inferred from tongue depth), not to tongue height. Further work will examine which plays the more important role. [Work supported by NIH Grant DC‐02717.]

Many West African languages have two sets of vowels that are said to differ by one having an advanced tongue root [+ATR], and the other a retracted tongue root [−ATR]. The [+ATR] set may also have an enlarged pharynx and a lowered larynx. Words (roots) in these languages must contain vowels that are all of one set or the other. To test whether there is a constant articulatory difference between the two sets of vowels in Degema, a Delta Edoid language spoken in Nigeria, DAT recordings were made of 8 speakers. For 2 of the speakers, frontal and lateral videos were made of the lip aperture. The frequencies, amplitudes and bandwidths of the first 3 formants of the 5 pairs of vowels were determined from LPC analysis. These data were modeled using an articulatory synthesizer. After an appropriate set of vocal tract shapes had been determined for the [−ATR] set of 5 vowels, articulatory perturbations such as tongue root advancement, pharynx enlargement, and larynx lowering, were applied to the modeled [−ATR] vocal tract shapes to generate the [+ATR] set. A variety of articulatory gestures seem to be needed to convert vowels from one set into the other.

The Akan language has a harmony system bifurcating its vowel inventory into two complimentary sets. Previous work by Lindau [J. Phon. 7, 163–176 (1979)] has shown that these sets are distinguished by tongue root position (ATR) and larynx height, and she proposed a feature “Expanded” to characterize the relevant difference in phayrngeal volume. Lindau's measurements were based on cineradiographic tracings of the sagittal midline only; the purpose of the current study was to exploit magnetic resonance imaging to obtain (axial) images of cross sections through the pharynx for vowels in the contrasting vocal tract configurations. Sagittal and axial image data were obtained for three vowel pairs: /i/:/ɪ/,/e/:/ɛ/, and /u/:/ɷ/. Subjects were scanned while phonating continuously with constant pitch and vowel quality, with a recording of the target vowel playing continuously through an earphone. A sound recording was made of vocal output to verify subjects remained on target. The results obtained show that Akan does rely on tongue root advancement and a lowered larynx for the harmony contrast, but also show that pharyngeal lateral width varies systematically as well. This confirms Lindau's observation that pharyngeal volume rather than tongue root position alone is the distinguishing characteristics. [Work supported by NIH Grant DC‐00121.]

A 17-month old Dobermann Pinscher bitch was presented with a self-induced, total avulsion of the tongue. Clinical signs of haemorrhagic shock were present. An inability to swallow led to rapid and progressive dehydration and weight loss. Management was initially directed at the correction of haemorrhagic shock, and then at the maintenance of fluid and energy balance while the tongue root healed by secondary intention. Aggressive parenteral feeding and hydration via a pharyngostomy tube resulted in stabilization of body weight. The dog has since gained weight and can maintain adequate food and water intake. Solid food is taken into the mouth and swallowed with minimal difficulty, although drinking is accompanied by some spillage.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possibility of application of ultrasonic technique to observe tongue shape. One of the advantages of ultrasonic technique is harmlessness to the human subject. Beside this, the frontal section of the tongue which is the difficult object for ordinary X-ray photo can be visualized. Sagittal contours of the tongue for five Japanese vowels observed by this method are well corresponding to those by X-ray technique. Contours of the frontal section at around the tongue root show a groove formation during /i/, /e/, and /o/ production.For all of these three vowels, the genioglossus muscle shows higher activity. Therefore, the observed groove may be representing the inserting portion of the genioglossus muscle.Since the apparatus we used in this study is designed and developed for the clinical purpose, for example to examine the thyroid tumor, the data we got had limited informations especially, the visualized area was narrow. But if we can use the sector type porbe instead of the linear type, we might have the wider area to be observed.The ultrasonic apparatus would be appropreate for observation of the tongue shape.

Tracings from x rays were made of the shape of the tongue in nine vowels as spoken by five speakers of General American. The midline of the tongue on each tracing was specified in terms of twelve numbers (two orthogonal measurements for each of six defined points). The resulting 9×5×12 matrix was analyzed by the PARAFAC procedure (Harshman, this meeting). The data indicate the extent to which the midline of the tongue can be described in terms of a small number of factors. The paper will discuss the relation between these factors and the following physiological parameters: (1) jaw opening; (2) forward pull of the posterior genioglossus muscle on the tongue root (and hence raising of the body of the tongue) as opposed to backward pull of the glossopharyngeus muscle; (3) upward and backward pull of the styloglossus muscle; (4) downward pull of the hyoglossus muscle; and (5) actions of the intrinsic muslces that control the bunching of the tongue.

Nobody knows what the brain tells the vocal organs to do when producing speech. As a starting point, a computer model has been built in which there are the following independent articulatory parameters: height and backness of the body of the tongue, lip height, lip width, lip protrusion, jaw opening, tip of tongue curling, tip of tongue advancing, tongue root advancement, tongue bunching, and larynx raising. An alternative specification of the body of the tongue uses front raising and back raising gestures, each of which can be combined with the other in different degrees. There are also several options for the interdependent action of the parameters. Instead of being independently specified, the lower lip and the jaw can be determined by the gesture required for the tongue, or the tongue height and lower lip position can be determined by the jaw position. Lip protrusion can be considered to be a coordinative structure that also specifies lipwidth. Larynx height and tongue root advancement can be consider...

Examination of the vocal‐tract configurations that are available for the production of vowels, and of the properties of the sounds produced by these configurations, suggests that certain configurations are preferred in the sense that they give rise to sound outputs that are distinctive and whose properties are relatively insensitive to perturbations in the articulatory representation. It is shown that anterior‐posterior movement of the tongue body leads to two such preferred configurations independent of tongue height‐configurations corresponding to the traditional phonetic feature [± back]. Variation in tongue height is postulated to produce three distinctive positions achieved through movements of the tongue and the mandible: tongue maximally raised toward the hard or soft palate, tongue lowered but with some palate contact maintained with the edges of the tongue, and severed contact of the tongue with the palate. Shifts from one of these positions to another produces well‐defined contrasts in the acoustic output. Quantal adjustments leading to distinctive acoustic contrasts can also be made in the lips and tongue root, Implications of this point of view in the formulation of systems for the classification of vowels are discussed. [Supported in part by an NIH Grant.]

Based on dissections and on published X‐ray tracings of the vocal tract we investigated the role of the epiglottis in the production of vowels. Our conclusion is that while the size and position of the epiglottis arc rather variable across subjects and across utterances, one pattern appears to be relatively stable: The angle of the epiglottis with respect to the adjacent portion of the tongue root appears to correlate well with the feature ADVANCED TONGUE ROOT. Since the cartilage of the epiglottis is sometimes more readily observed than is the tongue root itself, this correlation may be useful in some cases. Other patterns are less reliable. In order of decreasing reliability we present the following generalizations: (i) high vowels have a large space between the epiglottis and the tongue root, low vowels have little or none; (ii) back vowels have a relatively enclosed pocket between the epiglottis and the tongue root, front vowels have a relatively open pocket; (iii) vowel height has a marginally greater influence on epiglottis position as measured from the wall of the pharynx than does the feature TENSE. [Work supported by NIH.]