Negative intraoral pressure in German:

Evidence from an exploratory study

Susanne Fuchs1 and Blake Rodgers2

1
Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS), Berlin, Germany
2
University of Wisconsin Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Corresponding author:

Susanne Fuchs

Centre for General Linguistics (ZAS)

Schuetzenstrasse 18

10117 Berlin

Email: fuchs@zas.gwz-berlin.de

Phone: ++49 30 20192 569

Fax: ++49 30 20192 402

1
Abstract

Phonemic clicks are geographically limited to the African continent, but non-phonemic clicks

can also occur in languages spoken elsewhere. One of the phonetic peculiarities of clicks is that

they involve negative intraoral pressure. The current study is a survey of instances of negative

intraoral pressure excursions in German, a European language which is known to show instances

of weak clicks in consonant sequences. Data of spontaneous speech in monologues and read

passages from 14 female subjects are analysed. Our data provide evidence that negative pressure

occurs frequently in speech production, in particular in pauses (between speech intervals) and in

consonant sequences. Of particular interest is that clicks can also occur without an obvious dual

closure in the vocal tract. Negative pressure in pauses occurs frequently with clicks (but not

exclusively) which are aligned with the pressure minimum. We conclude that these aligned

clicks are epiphenomenal and reflect the interaction of the respiratory and the laryngeal systems.

In consonant sequences, clicks may be present more often with front-to- back consonant order

than the reverse, but in both cases negative pressure can be found.

2
1 Introduction

Clicks are non-pulmonic sounds and relatively rare among the sounds of the world’s languages.

Their occurrence in phoneme inventories is geographically limited to the African continent

(Ladefoged & Maddieson, 1996 ; Güldenmann & Stoneking, 2008; Miller et al., 2009). In

African languages, clicks serve as the smallest contrastive unit and have a linguistic function.

For example, in Zulu [ìsìːŋǀéː] (kind of spear) and [ìsìː ǃŋéː] (rump) are contrastive (see Ladefoged,

2006).

Clicks in other languages are to a large extent overlooked since they do not have a

phonemic status and they are acoustically less salient than African clicks. Non-African clicks

will be considered in this study. One of the main features of clicks is the occurrence of negative

intraoral pressure. The first aim of this exploratory study is to use a data driven approach to

evaluate the occurrence of negative intraoral pressure in human speech production in order to

provide a better understanding where clicks could potentially occur. A second aim is then to

relate these findings to the presence or absence of weak clicks in the acoustic signal and discuss

the possible underlying articulatory behaviour.

1.1 The occurrence of weak clicks in non-African languages and their properties

The most often reported clicks in non-African languages such as French (Marchal, 1987),

German (Simpson, 2007), Korean (Silverman & Jun, 1993), English (Ohala, 1995) are the ones

that occur in sequences of two successive stops. In the case of two adjacent stops, two closures in

the vocal tract (most likely bilabial, alveolar, velar, glottal) may be realized with some temporal

overlap (Fuchs, Koenig & Winkler, 2007). If the volume of air between the two closures is

increased, it results in negative intraoral pressure. When the closure is released, it is possible for

a ‘weak click’ to be produced. We will use ‘weak clicks’ to refer to epiphenomenal clicks in

contrast with the African clicks.

3
 Ohala (1995) was able to show a small negative pressure excursion between /m/ and /n/

with a pressure sensor located just behind the lips during an utterance of ‘da[mn]ation’ of his

own speech. He also mentioned that although negative pressure is theoretically possible in both

front to back or back to front stop sequences, clicks may only be audible in the former case,

since the back stop can already be anticipated during the production of the front stop (large

degree of temporal overlap) leading to a double occlusion. Less temporal overlap, no double

occlusion and therefore fewer clicks are expected in the opposite direction, since the anticipation

of a front stop during the production of a back stop is less likely without hiding the first

consonant (Chitoran, Goldstein & Byrd, 2002; see also Rochet-Capellan & Schwartz, 2007 for a

phenomenon called the Labial-Coronal Effect which discusses the greater stability of front-back

consonant articulations in comparison to back-front consonant articulation).

Simpson (2007) conducted an analysis of both canonical stop releases and epiphenomenal

releases (weak clicks) for stop clusters using acoustic data. In combination with previous

aerodynamic and articulatory studies, he speculated on their potential production mechanisms. In

particular, he discusses three: 1) pulmonic, 2) non-pulmonic egressive, and 3) non-pulmonic

ingressive. These releases were found in alveolar-velar, bilabial-velar, alveolar-glottal stop

sequences. He found that all three types of release were possible for the same environment

across different speakers. He characterized the canonical pulmonic release as having a long

duration (50-100 ms), while non-pulmonic releases were short (10-15 ms). According to

Simpson (2007) egressive non-pulmonic bursts were characterized by energy over a broad

spectrum, and ingressive non-pulmonic bursts showed energy concentrated at lower frequencies

(<4000 Hz). The non-pulmonic bursts were assumed to have been produced by a velaric

airstream mechanism in which there were two simultaneous closures, and speaker-specific

articulatory motion during this period produced either cavity expansion for pressure decrease or

cavity compression for pressure increase.

4
 Silverman and Jun (1993) measured pressure and airflow during the production of

Korean /pk/ and /kp/ sequences with different combinations of front and back vowel context.

Pressure was measured in the oral cavity with a sensor mounted on the flow mask and

pharyngeally with a nasally inserted pressure sensor. Regarding the production of negative

pressure, consonant order did not matter. The presence of negative pressure was entirely

dependent on vowel order. Using the case of identical vowel context before and after, they found

that back to front vowel sequences produced a higher oral pressure, and front to back vowel

sequences produced a marked rarefaction in oral pressure: /ipku/ and /ikpu/ showed negative

intraoral pressure, but not /upki/ or /ukpi/. They suggest that the tongue motion for vowel

production produced the observed pressure changes. They hypothesized that a back to front

vowel sequence produced a pressure increase due to tongue motion that compressed the cavity

resulting from dual closure, while a front to back vowel sequence produced a pressure decrease

due to tongue motion that enlarged the cavity (negative pressure).

1.2 The function of clicks in non-African languages

To our knowledge, three different classes of clicks in non-African languages have been

discussed in the literature: those with a paralinguistic function, those with a communicative

function, and those produced inadvertently epiphenomenally. Various authors report that clicks

serve a paralinguistic function (Gil, 2011; Wright, 2011) and their phonetic properties can reflect

several emotional states such as annoyance, disapproval, sympathy etc. With very few

exceptions, these findings have not been grounded in empirical data (e.g., Ward, 2006). Hence

further investigations, in particular perception studies, are necessary to derive reliable

conclusions on the paralinguistic function of clicks.

A communicative function of clicks in human interaction has been addressed by the

studies of Wright (2007, 2011). Wright carried out a comprehensive study of clicks in talk in

interaction based on corpora of 18 hours of telephone interactions. Clicks were realized by 20

5
speakers. Out of this data set Wright selected 86 ‘New Sequence Indexing’ clicks, clicks that

follow a disjunctive change in conversation. The infrequent occurrence of clicks in this large

database speaks for the rarity of these sounds (about 4.7 per hour) in non-click languages. Out of

the 86 clicks, 53 (62%) were simultaneously produced with the onset of inhalation and 33 (38%)

without inhalation. Wright concludes that clicks have “an orderly, sequential distribution which

can be mapped onto the interactional structure of English conversation” (Wright, 2007: 1072).

Clicks as an epiphenomenon of speech preparation have been described in Scobbie,

Schaeffler & Mennen (2011). They studied speech preparation in reading tasks in German and

English. The authors mention that potential differences in speech preparation among the

languages may reflect language-specific articulatory setting as they occur in pauses between

speech intervals (Gick et al., 2004). Their results show that the most frequent pattern (about 60%

of the cases) before reading a sentence is a click that is followed by inhalation noise. They note

that it was not possible to determine whether sounds were pulmonic or non-pulmonic, and there

was a great deal of variation in the acoustic signal.

Furthermore, most frequently clicks are reported as an epiphenomenon in successive

consonant sequences as described in the section above. Although they are considered a by-

product of articulatory timing and overlap, Ohala (1995) argues that, for instance, for the specific

case of /m/ followed by /n/, an epiphenomenal click can give the listener the impression of an

epenthetic stop insertion and may have led to sound change in various languages. Thus, even an

epiphenomenon can become linguistically relevant over time, provided listeners can hear it.

In order to shed light on one of the defining properties of clicks, negative intraoral

pressure, we carried out a combined acoustic and intraoral pressure study, recording fifteen

German subjects. The subjects were recorded under both spontaneous speech (monologue) and

read speech conditions, and all instances of negative pressure were identified.

6
2 Methodology

2.1 Experimental set-up

A pressure transducer (Endevco 8507C-2, San Juan Capistrano, CA) was inserted in a small

plastic tube that was glued on silk (see Figure 1a) and the silk was affixed by means of surgical

glue (epiglu ®) to the end of the hard palate (see Figure 1b). The pressure transducer was about

12 mm in length and 2 mm in diameter. It senses the pressure difference between the pressure in

the intraoral cavity and the outside atmosphere via a thin tube.

a) b)

Figure 1: a) Pressure transducer and plastic pipe glued on silk. b) Position of the pressure

transducer at the subject’s hard palate.

This methodology has been successfully tested on a number of subjects (Fuchs & Koenig, 2009;

Koenig, Fuchs & Lucero, 2011) and permits an assessment of intraoral pressure for stops when

the closure is produced anterior to sensor’s placement. It is straightforward to sense intraoral

pressure for bilabial or alveolar stops. For velars, however, the closure location may individually

differ and can be anterior to, at, or posterior to the pressure transducer. In the first case, pressure

can be sensed, whereas in the latter two cases the measures will not be reliable. Putting the

pressure transducer even more posterior was not an option, since this decreases the subject’s

comfort and increases the sensitivity to react with a gag reflex. Moreover, a more posterior

location of the sensor decreases the likelihood of getting intraoral pressure rarefaction in

consonant sequences. In consonant sequences the transducer needs to be located between two

7
closures, e.g., between an alveolar and a velar closure. The exact location of these closures in

running speech is unknown and may even be individually different. Since the pressure transducer

may not always be placed at the right location, we may miss cases where negative pressure

occurs. Thus, we expect more cases of negative pressure than we actually observed in our data.

Intraoral pressure data were simultaneously recorded with acoustic signals by means of a super

cardiod condenser microphone (Sennheiser HKH50 P48) using a six channel voltage data

acquisition system (DATaREc® 4DIC6B/DIC6L). The sampling rate of all data was set to 22050

Hz.

Before the recording session started, the pressure transducer was calibrated using PCQuirer. To

do so, the pressure signal was recorded while changing the water column in 2 cm steps. Such a

procedure allows pre-processing intraoral pressure data in Pa and comparing them among

subjects. The calibration was carried out before each recording session and turned out to be very

stable even across several days of data collection. During the recording session participants sat in

front of a music stand where they could read the respective target words during the reading task.

2.2 Speakers and speech material

Participants of the study were fifteen native speakers of German. They were all female students

aged 21 – 33 years with no known history of speech, language or hearing impairment. All

participants spoke Standard German and grew up either in the Berlin and Brandenburg area or

Northern Germany. All subjects provided informed consent and were paid for their participation

in the study.

One speaker was removed from further analysis. No intraoral pressure data could be recorded,

since the subject showed a strong gag reflex when trying to apply the pressure transducer.

The recording session consisted of the following tasks:

a) Spontaneous speech (monologue)

b) Reading a short text

8
c) Tongue twisters

d) Reading a word list of target words

e) Reading target words embedded in a sentence

The order of the tasks was kept the same to avoid an influence of the read speech material on the

choice of words in the spontaneous speech. Subjects always started with a spontaneous speech

task by answering for about two minutes about one or more of the following questions:

1) What did you have for breakfast?

2) What is your neighbourhood like?

3) How do you like Berlin?

4) What do you like to do on vacation?

5) What do you do in your free time?

Note that the experimenter did not interact with the subject and therefore this speech material

should be considered as a monologue. The spontaneous speech task was then followed by a short

reading passage (see Appendix A), which was written by us for the purpose of comparing the

production of certain monosyllabic words (with voiced and voiceless stops in onset and coda

position) in a text and a word list. Following that task, subjects were instructed to read two very

common German tongue twisters two times (one with normal and one with fast speed). These

tongue twisters involve alveolar-velar stop combinations (see Appendix B) that can trigger

negative pressure (e.g., Fuchs et al., 2007). The subject self-selected the respective speed of

production. The following two tasks (reading target words in a word list and in sentences) will

not be further considered here.

2.3 Data pre-processing

The raw data were first converted from .edt format to Matlab. For labelling negative pressure we

further converted all acoustic and intraoral pressure data to a .wav format and labelled segments

containing negative intraoral pressure using PRAAT (version 5.1.18, Boersma & Weenink,

9
2008). In the corresponding textgrids the respective speech material was added for the intervals

where negative intraoral pressure was found.

Intraoral pressure data were multiplied by a factor that was calculated on the basis of the

pressure calibration procedure. The raw intraoral pressure data were additionally smoothed using

the filtfilt function in MATLAB to minimize time delays. A lowpass filter was used with

passband edge =40 Hz, stopband edge = 100 Hz, and stopband attenuation = 50 dB. This

processing eliminated the high-frequency oscillation associated with phonation and yielded

minimal distortion around the regions of rapid pressure changes associated with obstruent

closure and release.

In order to define negative pressure, a zero line was defined on the basis of the smoothed

intraoral pressure signal at stable (flat) vowel portions surrounding the time interval of interest.

By flat vowel portions we refer to those vowels which do not involve lip protrusion, since lip

protrusion increases the vocal tract length and can lead to baseline drifts within the vowel.

Moreover, baseline drifts may generally be found over the course of the experiment. For the

purpose of identifying negative pressure events, the determination was made based on a local

baseline. Figure 2 provides a general overview of selected events. We did not constrain our

labelling with respect to a certain time window, since clicks can involve very rapid movements

(Scharf et al., 1995). However, pressure variations that are shorter than vocal fold oscillations

have not been taken into account. Furthermore, we did not consider pressure variations that

differ approximately 20 Pa from zero.

10
 600 600
Intraoral pressure [Pa]

0 0

a) b)
-600 -600
9.5 10 10.5 16.8 17 17.2 17.4 17.6

600 600

0 0
d)

c)
e)
-600 -600
24 24.2 24.4 24.6 63 63.5 64 64.5

Time [s]

Figure 2: Examples for labelling negative pressure (speaker 14) in spontaneous speech. a)

negative pressure in /m#g/ at the word boundary between [ɪm] and [ɡʁyn]<im Grünen> (in the

nature), b) during inhalation, c) in /m#k/ at the boundary between [ʊntɐneːm] and [kan]

<unternehmen kann> (undertake something), d) during inhalation and swallowing (pressure data

are always clipped and are above /below +/-2000 Pa) and e) in the palatal fricative during [ɪҫ]

<ich>(I).

3 Results

We first provide a general overview of contexts where negative intraoral pressure was found.

Since our results are to a large extent congruent with results on weak clicks reported in the

literature, i.e. negative pressure occurring in inter-speech intervals (Scobbie, Schaeffler &

Mennen, 2011; Wright, 2011), in consonant sequences (Ohala, 1995; Marchal, 1987; Simpson,

11
2007; Fuchs, Koenig & Winkler, 2007), in vowel-consonant sequences (Silverman & Jun, 1993),

we grouped our findings accordingly:

• inter-speech intervals (breathing or silent pauses),

• consonant sequences (CC),

• sequences consisting of a vowel and a nasal, lateral or glide (CV or VC),

• single consonants,

• single vowels.

Furthermore, single vowels and consonants have been added, although the former group is only

marginal. For the latter we found instances of negative pressure that appeared within velar stops

and palatal fricatives.

In the spontaneous speech task negative pressure occurs most frequently in inter-speech

intervals in (65 % of the all instances of negative pressure, n = 259). This is followed by

consonant sequences, 15 % (n =58), single consonants, 14% (n = 57), vowel-consonant

combinations, 5 % (n = 21), and single vowels, 1% (n = 2). Comparable distributions were found

for the reading task (72% for inter-speech intervals, 14% single consonants, 12% consonant

sequences, 2% vowel-consonant sequences), but absolute numbers were lower (in total n = 179),

since there was significantly less speaking time than in the spontaneous speech task.

In the next sections we will concentrate on the negative pressure occurring during the

inter-speech intervals and during consonant sequences. Although the percentage for instances of

negative pressure in single consonants is also quite large, this group consists of the voiceless

palatal fricative and the voiced and voiceless velar stops only. In the former case, e.g. in <ich>

[ɪҫ] (I), a small negative pressure could be found over the whole fricative interval. We interpret

this with respect to the sensor’s location within the constriction (palatal channel) where a high

egressive air flow and a negative pressure should be expected. In the latter case (/g, k/), e.g. in

[ɔkeː] (okay), the pressure signal varies often from one item to the next and no general pattern

emerged. This may be due to the contact of the tongue with the sensor or related to the sensor’s

12
placement anterior or posterior to the velar closure. We cannot separate methodological issues

related to the pressure sensor from potential theoretical implications of these findings.

Theoretically, it is possible that forward looping patterns (Brunner, Fuchs & Perrier,

2011; Mooshammer, Hoole & Kühnert, 1995; Perrier et al., 2005) that are found in particular

vowel contexts like /aka/ where the tongue moves towards the palate, builds a closure and slides

forward along the palate, could enlarge the oral cavity and may lead to a small pressure

rarefaction. That would also be in agreement with the results of Silverman and Jun (1993), who

demonstrated the impact of front or back vowel context on the occurrence of negative pressure.

Cases with vowel-consonant sequences or single vowels also occurred, but they are much

less frequent and will not be considered further. They correspond to pulmonic sounds. A few

examples from the database are given in Figure 3.

sp11, free sp10, free sp09, free

0.6 0.6 0.6
0.4 0.4 0.4
Oscillogram

Oscillogram

Oscillogram

0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0
-0.2 -0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4 -0.4

-0.6 -0.6 -0.6
79.5 79.6 79.7 79.8 79.9 3.9 3.95 4 4.05 4.1 55.65 55.7 55.75 55.8
Intraoral pressure [Pa]

400 400 400

200 200 200

0 0 0

-200 -200 -200

-400 -400 -400

79.5 79.6 79.7 79.8 79.9 3.9 3.95 4 4.05 4.1 55.65 55.7 55.75 55.8
Time [s]

Figure 3: Examples for VC-sequences (column1, /il/ in [famiːljə] <Familie> (family)), and single

C (second column velar voiceless stop in [okeː] <okay> (okay) and third column voiceless

palatal fricative in [ɪç] <ich> (I)).

13
3.1 Pressure rarefaction in inter-speech intervals

The most consistent finding in our dataset is the occurrence of negative intraoral pressure during

inter-speech intervals (pauses) of all kinds (n = 259 for spontaneous speech and n = 129 for

reading). In a further analysis we classified the data in: silent pauses, non-breathing pauses with

weak clicks, non-breathing pauses with swallows, non-breathing pauses with swallows and weak

clicks, breathing pauses with no clicks, and breathing pauses with clicks. Figure 4 provides some

examples.

sp03 sp10 sp09

0.3 0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2 0.2

Oscillogram

0.1 0.1 0.1

0 0 0

-0.1 -0.1 -0.1

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2

18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 17.4 17.6 17.8 18 18.2 67.6 67.65 67.7 67.75

breath & click breath, but no click no breath, but clicks

200 200 200
Intraoral pressure [Pa]

0 0 0

-200 -200 -200

-400 -400 -400

-600 -600 -600

-800 -800 -800

-1000 -1000 -1000

18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 17.4 17.6 17.8 18 18.2 67.6 67.65 67.7 67.75
Time [s]

Figure 4: Examples for intraoral pressure rarefaction during inhalation in running speech. Upper

tracks depict oscillograms and lower tracks display the respective intraoral pressure. First

column corresponds to a breathing pause with a weak click in the beginning, second column to a

breath pause with no click and third column to a pause without breathing noise, but some small

clicks.

14
Weak clicks were defined as spikes in the acoustic signal which were larger in amplitude than

the surrounding context. Breathing pauses were determined on the basis of breathing noise in the

acoustic signal. Swallowing was defined on the basis of an auditory impression and additionally

on the extreme negative pressure values (pressure data were clipped and were above +/-2000 Pa,

since the tongue touches the pressure sensor) over a longer time window. Our results provide

evidence that nearly half of all pauses were breathing pauses with weak clicks (46%), followed

by breathing pauses without clicks (32%) and pauses with no audible breath but a click (19%).

All other cases were marginal (1-2%). In read speech the proportions look slightly different.

Negative pressure occurs in only 40 % of breathing pauses with clicks, in 54 % of the breathing

pauses without clicks, in 5% of the non-breathing pauses with a click and in 1% of the silent

pauses.

A result which we did not expect, but which became evident during data analysis, was

that the occurrence of the acoustic spikes in the inter-speech intervals was in most cases (55%)

temporally aligned with the pressure minimum. In 25 % of the cases no alignment was found and

in 20 % of the cases, the pressure data are clipped, so that we can not analyse alignment reliably.

The most frequent pattern, however, is the one showing alignment between the location of the

click and the pressure minimum. Such a pattern is not speaker-specific, but occurs in all subjects.

Examples are shown in Figure 5 below.

15
 sp12 sp12 sp04
0.3 0.3 0.3

0.2 0.2 0.2

Oscillogram

0.1 0.1 0.1

0 0 0

-0.1 -0.1 -0.1

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2

130 130.2 130.4 110.6 110.8 111 10 10.2 10.4

Intraoral pressure [Pa]

400 400 400

200 200 200

0 0 0

-200 -200 -200

-400 -400 -400

-600 -600 -600

-800 -800 -800

130 130.2 130.4 110.6 110.8 111 10 10.2 10.4

Time [s]

Figure 5: Examples for negative intraoral pressure during inhalation in running speech. Upper

tracks depict oscillograms with arrows marking the duration of the breathing noise and lower

tracks display the respective intraoral pressure with vertical arrows showing the alignment of the

pressure minimum with the click. The data from speaker 04 in column 3 is exceptional, since the

click occurs late in the breathing noise.

3.2 Pressure rarefaction in consonant sequences

As has been reported earlier (Marchal, 1987; Ohala, 1995; Fuchs, Koenig & Winkler 2007;

Simpson, 2007; Silverman & Jun, 1993) negative pressure may occur in successive consonant

sequences with two closures that overlap in time. In this section, we will describe occurrences of

negative intraoral pressure with respect to front-back or back-front articulation and also discuss

where clicks can be observed in the acoustic signal. In the spontaneous speech data we found

negative pressure in eight cases with back-front place of articulation, 36 cases with front-back

16
articulation and three cases where the place of articulation of the two consonants was the same,

but differed in nasality. In the reading passage we observed only six cases with negative pressure

in front-back articulations, but 16 in back-front articulation. In the tongue twisters, we found 46

cases with negative pressure in front-back articulations (/t#k/) but the speech material was

selected for that purpose. In the following paragraphs we will explain the front-back and back-

front articulations in more detail.

Front-back consonant sequences

The articulatory mechanism underlying front-back double occlusions is shown in Figure 6 taken

from Fuchs, Koenig & Winkler (2007). It shows tongue-palatal contact patterns for a /t#k/

sequence. The temporal order of the two successive stop productions is: first, alveolar closure is

made, second, velar closure is made in addition to the alveolar closure, third, alveolar closure is

released while velar closure is still present and finally, velar release is made. The alveolar release

is hence non-pulmonic, since the air comes from the small air pocket between the two closures.

10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5
10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5
10

Figure 6: Evidence for double occlusion in electropalatographic data taken from Fuchs, Koenig

& Winkler (2007), temporal changes in rows from top to bottom, black dots correspond to

tongue palate contacts, y-axis: from posterior (0) to anterior (8). Arrow in the first row shows
17
alveolar closure, in the second row alveolar and velar closure, in the third row alveolar release

and in the fourth row, velar release.

In the spontaneous speech dataset many instances of word-final nasal alveolar or bilabial stops

were followed by a word-initial velar release. Such cases have also been described acoustically

for German in Simpson (2007). Figure 7 provides four examples from different speakers. These

examples differ in the amount of negative pressure and whether a click was realized (only

present in the last two columns, but not in the first two).

sp14 sp07 sp03 sp03

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4
Oscillogram

0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0 0

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4

2.3 2.4 46.8 46.9 21.1 21.2 21.3 66.82 66.86

n#k m#k m#k n#g

600 600 600 600
Intraoral pressure [Pa]

400 400 400 400

200 200 200 200

0 0 0 0

-200 -200 -200 -200

-400 -400 -400 -400

-600 -600 -600 -600

2.3 2.4 46.8 46.9 21.1 21.2 21.3 66.82 66.86

Time [s]

Figure 7: Examples for intraoral pressure rarefaction in nasal-velar consonant sequences in

running speech (from left to right: /n#k/ as in <in Karlshorst> [ɪn kalshɔʁst] (in Karlshorst),

/m#k/ as in <ne[m k]leinen Balkon> [nəm klaɪ ̯n] (a small balcony), /m#k/ as in <am Kanal> [am

kanaːl] (at the canal) and /n#g/ as in <gester[n g]emacht> [gɛstɐn gəmaхt] (made yesterday).

Upper tracks depict oscillograms and lower tracks display the respective intraoral pressure (raw

18
data with oscillations and superimposed filtered data without oscillations). The arrows at the

pressure minimum point to the spike in the acoustic signal. Sp# in different columns is the

speaker number.

Figure 8 depicts examples of /t#k/ from the tongue twister task. It provides evidence that the /t/

release is very short (spike) and non-pulmonic in nature (see sp03). This acoustic release is

reduced due to the velar closure. In sp11, the alveolar release is not present in the acoustics, but

we assume that the articulatory gesture was realized, because intraoral pressure increased.

sp11 sp03 sp03

0.6 0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4 0.4

Oscillogram

0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4 -0.4

16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 17.7 17.8 17.9 34.3 34.4 34.5 34.6

t#k t#k t#k

Intraoral pressure [Pa]

1000 1000 1000

500 500 500

0 0 0

-500 -500 -500

16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 17.7 17.8 17.9 34.3 34.4 34.5 34.6
Time [s]

Figure 8: Examples for intraoral pressure rarefaction in /t#k/ sequences produced in the tongue

twisters. Upper tracks depict oscillograms and lower tracks display the respective intraoral

pressure (raw data with oscillations and superimposed filtered data without oscillations). The

arrow at the pressure minimum points to the spike in the acoustic signal.

Back-front consonant sequences

19
In our corpus we found negative pressure in five sequences of /n#m/ in read speech and in one

case in spontaneous speech (see Figure 9 below for examples).

sp15, free sp12, read sp14, read sp09, read sp02, read
0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4

Oscillogram

0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2

0 0 0 0 0

-0.2 -0.2 -0.2 -0.2 -0.2

-0.4 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4 -0.4

-0.6 -0.6 -0.6 -0.6 -0.6

74.6574.774.7574.8 9.7 9.75 9.8 16 16.05 7.9 7.95 7.66 7.68 7.7

n#m n#m n#m n#m n#m

400 400 400 400 400
Intraoral pressure [Pa]

200 200 200 200 200

0 0 0 0 0

-200 -200 -200 -200 -200

-400 -400 -400 -400 -400

-600 -600 -600 -600 -600

74.6574.774.7574.8 9.7 9.75 9.8 16 16.05 7.9 7.95 7.66 7.68 7.7
Time [s]

Figure 9: Examples for intraoral pressure rarefaction in nasal and nasalized sequences (first

column <legen mußte> [leːgn mʊstə] (had to lay), second till fifth column <jeden Morgen> [jeːdn

mɔɐgn] (every morning). Upper tracks depict oscillograms and lower tracks display the respective

intraoral pressure (raw data with oscillations and superimposed filtered data without oscillations).

Columns correspond to speakers and conditions.

This negative pressure is the result of an increase of the oral cavity when the nasalized stop is

released into the bilabial nasal stop. The negative pressure presumably results from an increase

in the size of the oral cavity caused by tongue motion during the alveolar release. In the acoustic

signal, no spikes were present, since the back closure is released while the front closure is

present. These results confirm Ohala’s suggestion (Ohala, 1995) that back-front sequences may
20
also show pressure rarefaction, but with no obvious audible consequences. Furthermore, it is

interesting to note that although the nasal passage is always connected to the oral cavity and to

atmospheric pressure, an increase in the size of the oral cavity still produces a negative pressure.

In the spontaneous speech data we found only 11 clicks out of 58 cases showing negative

pressure, i.e. there were many more cases of negative pressure than clicks. In the reading and the

tongue twister data, 28 clicks were realized out of 69 instances with negative pressure. Since we

did not control for the distance from the mouth to the microphone in this study, we cannot draw

any conclusions, but we hypothesize that the occurrence and prominence of clicks in the

acoustics is related to the amount of negative pressure in the oral cavity.

4 Discussion

4.1 Clicks in inter-speech intervals

As was also found in our study as well as in Wright (2007, 2011) and Scobbie, Schaeffler &

Mennen (2011), clicks occur frequently in connection with breath, and they appear at the

beginning of the breathing noise in the acoustic signal. Wright (2011) points to the

communicative function of such clicks, signalling a new sequence in the discourse. She also

argues that these clicks are not a consequence of breathing since not all breaths include clicks,

and not all clicks occur with inhalation. However, our own results and the work by Scobbie and

colleagues also show clicks in inter-speech intervals in tasks others than a discourse. Most of the

clicks occurring in breathing noise in our study show an alignment with the negative pressure

and occur at the pressure minimum. We interpret these findings with respect to the coordination

between glottal opening and inhalation. For the short and deep inhalation phase before starting to

speak, an open glottis is required and the glottis moves from a constricted position in speech to a

wide open glottis in breathing (see Figure 10, data are taken from our own transillumination

recordings, see Fuchs, 2005 for further details).

21
Figure 10: Glottal opening in a word initial voiceless aspirated /t/ (left) and during inhalation

(right).

We suggest that the spike in the acoustic signals reflects the release of the glottal constriction at

the end of speech and the beginning of inhalation. Moreover, breathing serves not only a

biological function, but is fundamentally linked to speech production. For instance inhalation

depth has been shown to vary as a function of utterance length, with deeper inhalation before

longer utterances (e.g., Whalen & Kinsella-Shaw, 1997; Fuchs et al., 2013) and also with respect

to the degree of sentence embedding (with deeper inhalation for main clauses in comparison to

embedded clauses (Rochet-Capellan & Fuchs, accepted). Therefore, it seems plausible to assume

that the coordination between glottal opening and inhalation may vary slightly depending on the

upcoming utterance length and the degree of sentence embedding and may have consequences

on the prominence of clicks in the acoustics. It is also likely that there is no clear distinction

between the epiphenomenal and the communicative function of clicks in these inter-speech

intervals, similar to what Ohala (1995) proposed for epenthetic stop insertions in /mn/ which

were originally based on coarticulatory processes and became linguistically relevant and led to

sound change. However, further work is needed to test such a hypothesis.

4.2 Clicks in consonant sequences

22
Negative pressure occurred frequently in consonant sequences differing in place of articulation.

This result holds true for front-back as well as back-front sequences. In front-back sequences we

interpret the negative pressure with respect to the double occlusion which is the consequence of a

temporal overlap of the two closures (see also Chitoran, Goldstein & Byrd, 2002). The closure of

the back consonant can be anticipated during the production of the front stop. In the back-front

sequences such temporal overlap is less likely, since a front closure can not be anticipated during

the production of a back closure without disturbing it. However, when both stops are realized

with different articulators, like with the lips and the tongue as it occurs in /n#m/ sequences,

negative pressure can also be produced. It is probably the result of the tongue tip being released

while the lips are closed for the bilabial stop. This increases the cavity downstream of the closure.

Although negative pressure is realized, either clicks do not frequently occur, or the small spikes

may be hidden by vocal fold oscillations.

4.3 Limitations of this work

This is an exploratory study using pressure and acoustic data to shed light on the production of

clicks in different speech tasks. Based on our results we assume that the prominence of the click

in the acoustics, if it occurs, is correlated with negative pressure. However, since we did not

control for the mouth to microphone distance, we cannot further test this assumption.

Furthermore, we have investigated spontaneous speech in monologues and read speech and the

results provide evidence for relatively frequent occurrences of negative intraoral pressure in both.

A statistical comparison of different task is not reasonable, because in both tasks different speech

material was used. Future work should additionally study free conversation to investigate the

communicative function of clicks and possibly differentiate them from epiphenomenal clicks that

are realized in inter-speech intervals. Another interesting aspect may be to study individual

differences in the frequency of click occurrences. We have not provided any details about

speaker effect, since the occurrence of negative intraoral pressure depends on the location of the

23
pressure sensor in the oral cavity. For instance, the cavity between two double occlusions is

often very small and the exact placement of the sensor unpredictable. In some speakers we may

have placed the sensor at the right location while in other speakers, the sensor may have been

placed slightly outside this cavity and then no negative pressure would have been found. In this

respect it is unknown whether differences among speakers are due to methodological issues.

5 Conclusion

Negative pressure in the oral cavity is a feature of clicks. Based on our data, however, we

conclude that it is not an exclusive property of these sounds. Negative pressure can be present

with no associated click in the acoustic signal. This may be somewhat surprising since speech

production is mainly realized on egressive air flow. Our data provide evidence that negative

pressure occurs relatively frequent in speech production, in particular in pauses (between speech

intervals) and in consonant sequences. Negative pressure in pauses occurs frequently with clicks

(but not exclusively) which are aligned with the pressure minimum. We conclude that these

aligned clicks are epiphenomenal and reflect the interaction of the respiratory and the laryngeal

systems. In consonant sequences, clicks may be present more often with front-to-back consonant

order than the reverse, but in both cases negative pressure can be found.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a grant from the BMBF (01UG0711) and by a grant by the NSF

award number 1052819. Additionally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments,

our subjects and Jörg Dreyer for technical support. This work is dedicated to Dieter Fuchs.

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27
Appendix A

<Der Tag war wundervoll. Lena begann ihn mit einem Lied auf den Lippen und nahm ein Bad.

Jeden Morgen machte sie diesen Putz und der Duft nach Parfüm und dem neusten Taft breitete

sich im Badezimmer aus. Danach frühstückte sie warme Brötchen und räumte den Tisch ab.

Plötzlich klingelte ihr Telefon. Eine tiefe Bassstimme meldete sich und redete wirres Zeug

durcheinander. Ein junger Bub wäre da. Er wolle Dart lernen und Lena solle ihre Sachen packen,

mit dem Bus vorbeikommen und mitspielen. Lena denkt, der Mann am Telefon ist

wahrscheinlich besoffen und legt den Hörer einfach auf. Sie genießt weiter ihren Tag und schaut

aus dem Fenster. Auf dem Dach zwitschern die Vögel. Es klingt wie ein Tusch. Sie kündigen

den beginnenden Frühling an. Tief einatmen und das Sonnenlicht einfangen. Das tut so gut.>

[deːɐ taːk vaːɐ vʊndɐfɔl leːna bəgan Ɂiːn mɪt Ɂaɪ ̯nəm liːt Ɂːaʊ̯f deːn lɪpən Ɂʊnt naːm

Ɂaɪ ̯n baːt jeːdən mɔɐgən maxtə ziː diːzən pʊʦ̑ Ɂʊnt deːɐ dʊft nax paɐfyːm Ɂʊnt

deːm nɔʏ̯ stən taft bʁaɪ ̯tətə zɪç Ɂɪm baːdəʦ̑ɪmɐ Ɂaʊ̯s danaːx fʁyːʃtʏktə ziː vaɐmə

bʁøtçən Ɂʊnt ʀɔʏ̯ mtə deːn tɪʃ Ɂap plœʦ̑lɪç klɪŋəltə Ɂiːɐ telɛfoːn Ɂaɪ ̯nə tiːfə

basʃtɪmə mɛldətə zɪç Ɂʊnt ʀeːdətə vɪʁəs ʦ̑ɔʏ̯ k dʊɐçɁaɪ ̯nandɐ Ɂaɪ ̯n jʊŋɐ bup vɛːʁə

daː Ɂɛɐ vɔlə daʁt lɛɐnən Ɂʊnt leːna zɔlə Ɂiːʀə zaxən pakən mɪt deːm bʊs

foːɐbaɪ ̯kɔmən Ɂʊnt mɪtʃpiːlən leːna dɛŋkt deːɐ man Ɂam telɛfoːn Ɂɪst vaːʁʃaɪ ̯nlɪç

bəzɔfən Ɂʊnt leːkt deːn høːʀɐ Ɂaɪ ̯nfax Ɂːaʊ̯f ziː gəniːst vaɪ ̯tɐ Ɂiːʀən taːk Ɂʊnt ʃaʊ̯t

Ɂːaʊ̯s deːm fɛnstɐ Ɂaʊ̯f deːm dax ʦ̑vɪʧ̑ɐn diː føːgəl Ɂɛs klɪŋt viː Ɂaɪ ̯n tʊʃ ziː

kʏndɪgən deːn bəgɪnəndən fʁyːlɪŋ Ɂan tiːf Ɂaɪ ̯natmən Ɂʊnt das zɔnənlɪçt Ɂaɪ ̯nfaŋən

das tuːt zoː gut]

(The day was wonderful. Lena started it with a song on her lips and took a bath. Every morning

she made this procedure and the smell of perfume and the new hair spray filled the bathroom.

Then she ate a breakfast of warm rolls and cleared the table. Suddenly her telephone rang. A

28
deep bass voice came on the line and began spewing confused nonsense. A young boy was there.

He wanted to learn how to play darts, and Lena should pack her things, catch the bus and join to

play. Lena thinks the man on the telephone is probably drunk, and hang up on him. She is

enjoying her day and looking out the window. Birds are singing on the roof. It sounds like a

flourish. They are announcing the beginning of spring. Taking a deep breath and catching the

sun light. Life is good.)

Appendix B

Alveolar-velar combinations are marked in bold for visualization purposes. Bold marking did not

appear on the text printed for the subjects.

<Der Potsdamer Postkutscher putzt den Potsdamer Postkutschkasten leer.>

[deːɐ pɔʦ̮̑ damɐ pɔstkʊʧ̑ɐ pʊʦ̑t deːn pɔʦ̮̑ damɐ pɔstkʊʧ̑kastən leːɐ]

(The stage coach driver from Potsdam cleans out his stage coach from Potsdam.)

<Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid und Rotkraut bleibt Rotkraut.>

[bʁaʊ̯tklaɪ ̯t blaɪ ̯pt bʁaʊ̯tklaɪ ̯t Ɂʊnt ʀoːtkʁaʊ̯t blaɪ ̯pt ʀoːtkʁaʊ̯t]

(A wedding dress remains a wedding dress and a red cabbage remains a red cabbage).

29