The acoustic contrast between the Dutch consonants /t/ and /d/ is reduced in tracheoesophageal speech

The purpose of this study is to describe the acoustic changes of the consonants /t/ and /d/ in Dutch speaking individuals before and after total laryngectomy. The speech of seventeen participants was recorded before and after treatment. Eighteen tokens from a read-aloud text were obtained with /t/ or /d/ in initial position. Prevoicing, burst duration and duration of the vowel following the consonant were analyzed. The results show that the acoustic contrast of the /t/ and /d/ in initial position is reduced after treatment. Post-operatively, the presence of prevoicing of /d/ decreases, and burst duration increases. In the post-operative situation, therefore, /d/ becomes more similar to /t/ acoustically.