Junctural contrasts in esophageal and normal speech.

This study assessed the realization of junctural contrasts by normal and esophageal speakers. Ten normal subjects and ten laryngectomized subjects using esophageal speech provided high quality tape recordings of three productions of five ambiguous two-word phrases. These recordings were presented to forty listeners for evaluation using a Two Interval Forced Choice procedure. Both normal and esophageal speakers realized junctural contrasts in ambiguous phrases in a highly effective manner. Significant differences in listeners' overall perception of juncture locus were found for talker group and individual speaker main effects. The findings of this project were interpreted to highlight the contribution that study of clinical samples may make to questions in linguistic therapy, speech production, and speech perception. Finally, the direct clinical relevance of the procedures and results are discussed.