COMMUNICATION OF LEXICAL TONES IN CANTONESE ALARYNGEAL SPEECH

Cantonese is a tone language with six lexical tones. Each word has a d istinctive tone, signaled by fundamental frequency variations at the s yllable level. We investigated the relative efficiency of alaryngeal C antonese speakers in conveying tonal variations in words in citation f orm. isolated tone tokens were produced by three esophageal speakers, two tracheoesophageal speakers, two pneumatic artificial laryngeal spe akers, and two electrolaryngeal speakers for perceptual tests. The cor rect responses from 22 listeners were highest for the pneumatic artifi cial laryngeal speakers, and could be graded in order of proficiency a s esophageal, tracheoesophageal, and electrolaryngeal speakers. These results provide a linguistic perspective tor guiding voice rehabilitat ion and the choice of voice in alaryngeal patients who speak a tone la nguage.