An MRI-based study of pharyngeal volume contrasts in Akan and English

Characteristic differences in pharyngeal volume between Akan±Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) vowel pairs have been investigated using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) techniques, and compared to the Tense/Lax vowel distinction in English. Two subjects (one for each language) were scanned during steady-state phonation of three pairs of contrasting vowels. Analysis of the resulting images shows that it is the overall difference in pharyngeal volume that is relevant to the Akan vowel contrast, not just the tongue root advancement and laryngeal lowering previously reported from X-ray studies. The data also show that the ATR contrast is articulatorily distinct from the English Tense/Lax contrast.