26 January 1996

Phonological Influences on Articulatory Timing

Dani Byrd

Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT

We see evidence of phonological structure in the act of speaking--not just in what we speak but in how we speak it. Phonological influences are manifest in the temporal and spatial patterning of articulation. Despite the pervasiveness of these influences, however, only a very few temporal "signatures" of prosodic structure have been identified at the level of articulatory patterning. This presentation will examine the temporal organization of oral articulatory gestures as a function of segmental, syllabic, and phrasal structure. Articulatory data collected with electropalatography and with a magnetometer will be reported from three experiments considering the effects of place and manner, syllable structure, and phrasal structure on the articulation of consonant sequences. The focus of the discussion will be on the temporal coordination of these articulations. The implications of these and other experimental results on intergestural timing will be interpreted within the theory of Articulatory Phonology. Limitations of this approach will be addressed, and an alternative, Phase Window framework for articulatory timing will be outlined.