Problems in the interpretation of the data related to nasality

ppt available at http://www.personnels.univ-paris3.fr/users/vaissier/pub/ARTICLES/vaissiere_2009_montpellier.pdfInternational audienceThere are some discrepancies on the results concerning nasality in the publications. These discrepancies can be explained by a difference in instrumentation, or in the corpus or the style or the speaker. For examples, EMG-based studies tend to conclude to a large nasal anticipation, as do fiberscopic studies ; aerodynamic data generally report more extensive carry-over than anticipatory phenomena. An open velopharyngeal port does not necessarily lead to acoustic couling and nasalisation.The meaning of term " nasal " is therefore source of misunderstanding and need to be expressed . Without physiological data, it is difficult to separate, for example, acoustic nasal mora and voice decay time after a unvoiced stop. There may be a positive nasal airflow when the velopharyngeal port is close, due to the pumping or pushing effect. Nasal airflow depends on airfow resistance (as well known, low vowels tend to have a lower velum, but have less nasal airflow, more coupling is necessary to perceive them as nasal. There is a uncontrollable timing of post-pausal nasal raising, prepausal lowering and declination. The " formants " due to the tongue (and lip) configuration the oral cavity cannot be measured in nasalized portions of speech !!