The magnitude and temporal extent of consonantal and vocalic coarticulation are reported for VCV sequences with two vowels ͑/{/, /a/͒ and seven consonants ͑/!/, /'/, dark /(/, /2/, /b/, /F/,/%/͒. Different degrees of articulatory constraint, or DAC values, are assigned to the consonants and vowels based on knowledge of their articulatory properties, in particular, the degree of involvement of the tongue dorsum in closure or constriction formation. Mean results on dorsopalatal contact and F2 frequency for five speakers of the Catalan language are presented. Predictions based on the DAC value for consonants and vowels account satisfactorily for the C-to-V effects ͑e.g., those for /Fa/ are more prominent that those for /pi/͒; moreover, vowel-dependent effects tend to be negatively correlated with the DAC value for the consonant ͑e.g., they are more prominent when the intervocalic consonant is /!/ than when it is dark /(/͒. V-to-C effects are also conditioned by the tongue-dorsum position for the consonantal gesture. Coarticulatory directionality trends reveal that the extent to which the vowel-dependent tongue-dorsum activity may be anticipated is closely linked to the mechanico-inertial constraints associated with the tongue dorsum during consonantal production; this observation explains the salience of the vowel-dependent anticipatory effects in VCV sequences favoring C-to-V anticipation and of the vowel-dependent carryover effects in VCV sequences giving special weight to C-to-V carryover.

Lingual movement data for Catalan vowel-consonant-vowel sequences reveal differences in contextual coarticulatory variability in tongue position at the middle of the consonant for p>/n/>dark/l/>/s/>> and at vowel midpoint for /u/>/a/>/i/. The velar stop /k/ exhibits a high degree of contextual variability in the horizontal dimension but not in the vertical dimension. These differences in coarticulatory sensitivity are attributed to differences in articulatory constraint, e.g., palatality and frication cause a higher degree of resistance in the consonant than laterality. A higher degree of contextual variability for dark /l/ than expected appears to be associated with speaker-dependent differences in darkness degree. Contextual variability is greater at regions not involved in closure or constriction formation, e.g., at the tongue dorsum than at the tongue front for alveolars. Coarticulatory resistance and coarticulatory aggressiveness are positively correlated: Phonetic segments, which are especially resistant to coarticulatory effects from the adjacent segments, exert maximal coarticulation on them. Consequently, highly constrained segments such as alveolopalatal consonants turn out to affect tongue position for less constrained segments such as back vowels rather than vice versa.

Electropalatographic and acoustic data reported in this study show differences in closure location and degree, dorsopalatal contact size, closure duration, relative timing of events and formant frequency between clear /l/ and dark /l/ in two dialects of Catalan (Valencian and Majorcan). The two Catalan dialects under investigation differ also regarding degree of darkness but essentially not regarding coarticulatory resistance at the word edges, i.e. the alveolar lateral is equally dark word-initially and word-finally in Majorcan, and clearer in the former position vs. than the latter in Valencian, and more resistant to vowel effects in the two positions than intervocalically in both dialects. With reference to data from the literature, it appears that languages and dialects may differ as to whether /l/ is dark or clear in all word positions or whether or not initial /l/ is clearer than final /l/, and that articulatory strengthening occurs not only word-and utterance-initially but word-and utterance-finally as well. These and other considerations confirm the hypothesis that degree of darkness in /l/ proceeds gradually rather than categorically from one language to another.