Mumbling is morphology?
Résumé
This study offers a possible physiological explanation for the observation that male speakers have repeatedly being found to exhibit less clear speech than females. We investigate one correlate of clear speech: jaw opening. In two articulatory data sets (American English, German) the jaw angle is examined as a function of sex and, additionally for the German data, accent condition. While no sex-specific differences are apparent in the American data, female speakers are found to have larger jaw opening angles than males in the accented condition in the German data. This empirical finding is borne out by the modeling study which compares the articulatory consequences of similar jaw opening settings in a typical male and a typical female articulatory model. In its most extreme setting the same angle of jaw opening in a male model gives rise to a complete radico-pharyngeal closure (but not in the female). The empirical and modeling findings suggest a possible physiological component in sex-specific differences in speech clarity.