Effects of prosodic boundary on /aC/ sequences: articulatory results

Abstract

This study presents EMA (electromagnetic articulography) data on articulation of the vowel /a/ at different prosodic boundaries in French. Three speakers of metropolitan French produced utterances containing the vowel /a/, preceded by /t/ and followed by one of six consonants /b d g f s S/ (three stops and three fricatives), with different prosodic boundaries intervening between the /a/ and the six different consonants. The prosodic boundaries investigated are the Utterance, the Intonational phrase, the Accentual phrase, and the Word. Data for the Tongue Tip, Tongue Body, and Jaw are presented. The articulatory data presented here were recorded at the same time as the acoustic data presented in Tabain [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 113, 516-531 (2003)]. Analyses show that there is a strong effect on peak displacement of the vowel according to the prosodic hierarchy, with the stronger prosodic boundaries inducing a much lower Tongue Body and Jaw position than the weaker prosodic boundaries. Durations of both the opening movement into and the closing movement out of the vowel are also affected. Peak velocity of the articulatory movements is also examined, and, contrary to results for phrase-final lengthening, it is found that peak velocity of the opening movement into the vowel tends to increase with the higher prosodic boundaries, together with the increased magnitude of the movement between the consonant and the vowel. Results for the closing movement out of the vowel and into the consonant are not so clear. Since one speaker shows evidence of utterance-level articulatory declension, it is suggested that the competing constraints of articulatory declension and prosodic effects might explain some previous results on phrase-final lengthening.

How far, how long: On the temporal scope of prosodic boundary effects

“…Phrase final and initial articulatory lengthening have been observed to increase cumulatively for larger prosodic boundaries (phrase finally: Byrd and Saltzman, 1998;Byrd, 2000;Cho, 2006;Tabain, 2003;Tabain and Perrier, 2005; and phrase initially: Byrd and Saltzman, 1998;Cho and Keating, 2001;Fougeron, 2001;Cho, 2006;Tabain, 2003;Keating et al, 2004), though there is individual variation. Articulatory studies have also shown there to be less temporal overlap between articulations separated by a boundary or adjacent to a boundary (McClean, 1973;Byrd et al, 2000;Byrd and Saltzman, 1998;Byrd, 2000; see also Hacopian, In the spatial domain, Fougeron and Keating (1997) and others show the effects of increased linguapalatal contact to be cumulative-higher (stronger) prosodic boundaries induce greater linguapalatal contact, both phrase initially (Fougeron and Keating, 1997;Cho and Keating, 2001;Fougeron, 2001;Keating et al, 1999;Tabain, 2003;Keating et al, 2004) and phrase finally (Fougeron and Keating, 1997 [although their results are less consistent across speakers than their results for phrase-initial effects], Keating et al, 1999; see also Hacopian, 2003;Tabain, 2003).…”

“…Articulatory studies show that at phrase edges "gestures get larger, longer, and further apart" (Byrd and Saltzman, 2003, p. 159;Byrd et al, 2000). Articulations are spatially more extreme and temporally longer (Edwards et al, 1991;Beckman and Edwards, 1992;Fougeron and Keating, 1997;Byrd and Salzman, 1998;Fougeron, 2001;Cho, 2006;Cho and Jun, 2000;Cho and Keating, 2001;Tabain, 2003;Keating et al, 2004;Tabain and Perrier, 2005).…”

A replicable acoustic measure of lenition and the nature of variability in Gurindji stops

“…It is also the case that position affects duration (Oller, 1973;Edwards et al, 1991;Tabain, 2003;Cho, 2006), which in turn affects lenition (Section 1.3.1). Consequently we will be interested in this study to probe whether the contributions to lenition of duration and position are to some degree independent.…”

Desambiguização de sentenças na interface fonologia-sintaxe: resultados perceptuais

“…Além disso, alguns estudos também constataram que quanto mais alto o domínio prosódico, maior é a duração (cf. TABAIN, 2003;KEATING et al, 2003). Neste caso, a previsão seria de uma variação na duração das sílabas de 'filho' apenas na aposição não-local, por serem próximas à fronteira de frase fonológica.…”