Go with the flow: Between automaticity and enhancement in control of segmental F0

This study looks at two areas where electromyographic data from the cricothyroid muscle (CT) can be used to improve our understanding of the nature of the articulatory representations underlying control of F0. The first area concerns consonant voicing: Robust differences in CT activity between voiced and voiceless consonants were found. A possible scenario accounting for higher F0 on the vowel following voiceless consonants is put forward. Voicing-related F0 differences on the vowel are thus seen as emerging automatically, contingent on consonant articulation. However, evidence was also found that some speakers may actively enhance such automatic effects, with CT differences persisting through the vowel. The second area involves two variations on the theme of vowel intrinsic pitch. Firstly, in the special case of the German tense-lax vowel contrast, a tendency was found for higher CT activity on the lax cognates. Lax vowels have sometimes been considered a problem for mechanical accounts of intrinsic pitch, since their F0 is higher than would be expected from their tongue position. This result indicates that tongue-pull effects are indeed present, but may be overlaid by active articulatory adjustments. Analysis of vowel height then led to similar conclusions to vowel tenseness. The relationship between F0 and CT activity revealed even more clearly that an automatic tongue-pull-style effect must be present. However, as for the consonant voicing results, it appeared that some speakers may enhance mechanically given effects, in this case showing higher CT activity for high vs. low vowels. The general conclusion is thus that articulatory control often latches onto mechanical effects, and tries to push them a little bit further.