Velum Posture

Project Overview 

The velum (a term sometimes used interchangeably with “soft palate”) is the soft structure that separates the nasal and oral cavities. When we speak, the velum is usually raised, closing the velopharyngeal port and preventing air from escaping through the nose. We lower the velum to produce nasal sounds. Our team is looking at the behaviour of the velum in speech to see if its position is finely tuned and whether the raised velum constitutes a stable posture of speech. Current research projects are looking at velum speed, degree of velum opening, and coarticulatory movement in different phonemic contexts, particularly in English and French.

Selected Publications / Conferences

Papers

de Boer, G., Islam, J., Purnomo, C., Wu, L., & Gick, B. (submitted). Revisiting the nasal continuum hypothesis: A study of French nasals in continuous speech. The Journal of Phonetics.

Murray, J.A., Wang, M., Islam, J., de Boer, G., & Gick, B. The effect of place of articulation on the extent of velopharyngeal opening in Quebecois French nasal consonants.

Purnomo, C.Y., Wu, L.X., Islam, J., de Boer, G., & Gick, B. The contextual effects of nasal vowels on velopharyngeal opening in Québécois French.

Presentations

Murray, J.A., Wang, M., Islam, J., de Boer, G., & Gick, B. The effect of place of articulation on the extent of velopharyngeal opening in Quebecois French nasal consonants. Presented at Acoustics Week in Canada (online). 2021.

Purnomo, C.Y., Wu, L.X., Islam, J., de Boer, G., & Gick, B. The contextual effects of nasal vowels on velopharyngeal opening in Québécois French. Presented at Acoustics Week in Canada (online). 2021.

Islam, J., de Boer, G., Lo, C., Smith, H., Tse, E., & Gick, B. (2020). X-ray analysis of velum movement in continuous speech. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 148(4), 2580-2580.

*Subject to change