This study's objective is to identify the vibratory phase characteristics and corresponding laryngeal configurations of a series of phonation types common in current phonetic usage. The phonation types examined are categorized auditorily following the articulatory framework established by Laver (1968, 1975, 1976, 1980), the general phonetic theory of Abercrombie (1967), and the systematic nomenclature for phonation types provided by Catford (1964). The primary phonation types in this taxonomy are compared laryngographically to determine their larynx waveform characteristics, based on the auditorily controlled performance of a single phonetically trained subject, and are described visually from laryngoscopic observation. This study is intended as a means of establishing a basis for further work in which a larger inventory of speakers of known background and a wider variety of possible phonatory combinations are examined. These preliminary comparisons suggest a set of relationships between phases of the vocal fold vibratory cycle and laryngeal configuration, expressed in terms of contrasting systems of stricture, and support a number of predictions that have been made in the literature on phonatory mechanisms.

This paper is an account of facts gleaned from the auditory analysis of thirty-seven recordings made in the Department of Phonetics, University of Edinburgh, between 1949 and 1966. Every student and staff member in the Department (which was merged with the Department of Linguistics in 1967) was recorded reading a standard passage, ‘The Story of Arthur the Rat’. There were actually two versions of the story used. The earlier one, used until 1957, contains two fewer potential linking /r/s than the later version, which is that published in Abercrombie (1964).

The main facts of Roger Kingdon's biography may be found at pp. 57–8 of Vol. 1 No. 2 of this Journal of December 1971. His phonetic interests were wide. His earliest contributions to these pages, in 1939, were Specimens of ‘General South West English’ and ‘South Hams Dialect’ (pp. 9, 10) and ‘East Devon’ (p. 50). For the first of these, wishing to distinguish three kinds of r-sound, a fricative, a strong retroflex and a weak retroflex, he introduced the completely new symbol . In 1973 this form was officially adopted into the Association's alphabet. His most modest contributions to these pages were two paragraphs of Spanish (a language of which he had a truly impressive command) in narrow transcription to the Students' Corner series again in 1939 (pp. 16 and 57). In that same fateful year he published his most important contribution to Le Maître Phonétique ‘Tonetic Stress Marks for English’ (pp. 60–4) which opened up a new era in English intonation studies.