On the relationship between vowel height and fundamental frequency: evidence from esophageal speech.

Data from esophageal speech produced by laryngectomized patients was used to provide a reexamination of major contemporary hypotheses advanced to account for intrinsic variation in vowel fundamental frequency (F0). 4 speakers provided recordings of 15 tokens of three CVC syllables [hid, hud, had]. Analysis of these utterances revealed that intrinsic variation in vowel F0 is clearly evident in esophageal speech. These findings were interpreted (1) to support neither the source-tract coupling nor the tongue-pull hypotheses and (2) to highlight the need to test alternative explanations to account for the intrinsic variation in vowel F0.