Acoustic and aerodynamic correlates of Hindi stops

In order to find out how the four Hindi stop types, p, p^h, b, b^h, are produced, we obtained the following data from native speakers: averaged fundamental frequency (FO) contours (on either side of the stops), oral air flow, and lung volume (via a plethysmograph) during the production of the stops in a sentence frame. The results include the following: (1) although the breathy‐voiced stops lower FO a great deal on the vowels following them, there is no consistent effect on FO by the other stop types, assuming the comparison of the various FO contours is done with respect to consonant onset, (2) the plethysmographic data reveal that short‐term variations in lung volume are purely a passive reaction to the rate of air flow out of the lungs—in other words, in contrast to previous claims, there is no active participation of the pulmonic system in the production of aspirated stops. [Supported by NSF.]