/community/community/main-forum/new-theory-about-maxilla-rotation/

This is not to dispel Couda's post on how the maxilla rotates, I agree with the mechanism he proposes, however, I disagree with the idea of purposefully lowering the hyoid or "jawning". The palatoglossus raises the posterior third, the posterior third of the tongue rests on the soft palate. Only if you push up on the hard palate could you theoretically push up on the vomer bone as shown by the images below, the vomer bone encompasses the hard palate. Therefore, if you were to push up or raise the back of the tongue onto the soft palate you're not pushing up on the vomer at all which means there's no need to purposefully lower the hyoid to prevent the tongue from pushing up too hard. Additionally, when I'm really thinking about how the front 2/3's of the tongue engages with the palate, it's not really "pushing up", rather, it raises itself and spreads out. The pressure I feel is not from pushing up on the hard palate, but the tongue trying to fit in an area that is too small.

The arrows mark the soft palate, the outline is the vomer, no way for the back of the tongue which the palatoglossus raises to jam the vomer.

As you can see here, the vomer encompasses the hard palate, the soft palate, is not shown here since this image is just showing hard tisssue. If you can imagine the soft palate would be the remaining third of the palate that's soft tissue and angles downwards a bit.