A study of articulatory kinematics of American English diphthongs.

Abstract

Diphthongs are acoustically characterized by formant movements between initial and final vocalic segments [cf, Holbook and Fairbanks, J. Speech Hear. Res., (1962); Thomas Gay, J. Acoust. Soc. Am., (1968)]. It has been observed that the initial (onset) and final (offset) portions may not correspond to typical monophthongal vowels and that there exists more acoustic variability in the offset portions than in the onset portions. Spectral transition rates have been found to be different from diphthong to diphthong. In the current study, the articulatory properties of American English diphthongs are investigated in tandem with their acoustic properties. We collected both acoustic and articulatory data of five diphthongs and seven monophthongs in [b-t] context embedded in a carrier sentence using electromagnetic articulography. The data were recorded from two male and one female subjects, and each diphthong was repeated five times. The main analysis focus is on the kinematic characteristics of the three different tongue sensors (tongue tip, tongue dorsum, and tongue rear) in each diphthong production and the comparisons to monophthongs that are close to either the onset portion or the offset portion of the given diphthong. [Work supported by NIH.]