In 289 patients with cleft lip and palate, cleft palate, submucous cleft palate and congenital velopharyngeal insufficiency, various aspects of pharyngeal stops were studied: incidence, place of articulation, factors which influence the occurrence, and elicited consonants (except/k/).
Observing those videofluoroscopy of the patients, we selected ones whose back of the tongue (and epiglottis) touched the posterior pharyngeal wall while they pronounced [ka]. The incidence of pharyngeal stops for [ka] was approximately 9%.
Pharyngeal stops were divided into three types according to the site of articulation: oropharynx, oro-and laryngopharynx and epiglottis. The oro-and laryngopharynx type, in which the epiglottis as well as the back of the tongue made contact with the posterior pharyngeal wall, was most common. Among the factors which influence the occurrence of pharyngeal stops were the following vowels. When low vowels followed/k/, such as [ka, ko], pharyngeal stops were most frequent. They were somewhat less frequent during the production of [ku], and rare during that of [ki, ke]. It was observed that the site of articulation of [ka, ku, ko] was different from that of [ki, ke] in a single patient. Moreover, the occurence of pharyngeal stops was influenced by the number of syllables: that is, they appeared less frequently in words or sentences than in single syllables. Pharyngeal stops were also observed during the production of/p/and/t/.
Pharyngeal stops are considered to be variable abnormal articulations.
