Voice-initiating Gestures in Spanish: Prenasalization

This work reports the use of nasal leakage to achieve the pressure difference for voicing in utterance-initial Spanish stops. Multiparametric aerodynamic and acoustic data were analyzed for six Spanish speakers. Two main patterns of prenasalization were identified in postpausal voiced stops: (i) delayed nasal closure relative to the oral closure and (ii) a momentary nasal opening (nasal burst) before phonation onset. Quantitative analysis showed that the time between oral and nasal closure was longer for voiced than devoiced stops, and for phonologically voiced than voiceless stops. Velopharyngeal closure was related to phonation onset such that as voicing was initiated, the velum began to raise. The results suggest that occurrence of velum leakage is related to vocal fold vibration in Spanish utterance-initial stops.