Abstract
A review was made on the mechanism of control of the fundamental frequency of voice with special reference to the prosodic control of speech articulation. The fundamental frequency of voice (F0) is regulated by changing the vocal fold length, its tension and effective mass of vibration. Physiologically, the intrinsic laryngeal muscles, particularly the cricothyroid and the thyroarytenoid, play a principal role in F0 adjustment, while the contribution of the external laryngeal muscles is also indicated mainly for F0 lowering. In addition, other factors such as subglottal pressure regulation would also be taken into consideration to some extent. In this paper, these factors were discussed based on recent findings in the field of experimental phonetics.
