Acoustic and Articulatory Properties of Linguistic Boundaries

Abstract

The linguistic concept of “juncture” has existed for decades but without consistent definitions in terms of objective physical quantities. Since 1969, we have proposed lengthened terminal consonants as physical correlates of word prominence [J. Acoust. Soc. Amer. 47, 94(A) (1970)]. Last year we asserted that English has consistent allophone selection at certain linguistic boundaries [J. Acoust Soc. Amer. 52, 132(A) (1972)]. Here we support those assertions with additional data on intensity and some spectral variations of fricatives, and data on nasal opening and glottal opening in consonant clusters. Using also the previous data on stops and fricatives and some inferences from speech synthesis, we attempt to give a complete picture of junctural effects in American English. We observe two extremes of “junctural” allophones: one in word-final positions, and the other in word-initial or stress-syllable-initial positions. Word-medial unstressed consonants have characteristics intermediate between these extremes. In words with differing stress or prominence, there is a continuous distribution from medial to the most extreme prominant-word-initial stressed consonants; distributions of final consonants are more disjoint. Boundaries between affixes and very common stems are sometimes clearly marked by initial or final allophones. Except for this and the stress effect, syllable and morpheme boundaries are not marked.