A magnetic resonance imaging-based articulatory and acoustic study of “retroflex” and “bunched” American English /r/

Abstract

Speakers of rhotic dialects of North American English show a range of different tongue configurations for /r/. These variants produce acoustic profiles that are indistinguishable for the first three formants [Delattre, P., and Freeman, D. C., (1968). "A dialect study of American English r's by x-ray motion picture," Linguistics 44, 28-69; Westbury, J. R. et al. (1998), "Differences among speakers in lingual articulation for American English /r/," Speech Commun. 26, 203-206]. It is puzzling why this should be so, given the very different vocal tract configurations involved. In this paper, two subjects whose productions of "retroflex" /r/ and "bunched" /r/ show similar patterns of F1-F3 but very different spacing between F4 and F5 are contrasted. Using finite element analysis and area functions based on magnetic resonance images of the vocal tract for sustained productions, the results of computer vocal tract models are compared to actual speech recordings. In particular, formant-cavity affiliations are explored using formant sensitivity functions and vocal tract simple-tube models. The difference in F4/F5 patterns between the subjects is confirmed for several additional subjects with retroflex and bunched vocal tract configurations. The results suggest that the F4/F5 differences between the variants can be largely explained by differences in whether the long cavity behind the palatal constriction acts as a half- or a quarter-wavelength resonator.