Phonotactic and morphonotactic influences on the (a)synchronicity of consonant clusters in Polish

Abstract

A pilot speech production experiment combined articulatory data obtained using Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA), along with acoustic measures, to investigate the effects of cluster size (CC vs. CCC) and morpheme boundaries on consonant cluster synchronicity for five speakers of Polish. We found that being placed in a larger cluster leads to less synchronous productions of two-consonant sequences. We also found, surprisingly, greater synchronicity for clusters spanning a morpheme boundary than for the same cluster within a morpheme. Our findings may be interpreted from a listener-oriented perspective in which speech production is sensitive to perceptual considerations.