Articulatory mechanisms underlying onset-vowel organization

Abstract

Previous research on articulatory correlates of syllable structure suggests that the temporal organization of syllables varies as a function of the segmental make-up of the onset cluster, yet there is currently little understanding of the details conditioning this variation. We pursue the hypothesis that consonantal coarticulation resistance is one such segment-based determinant of onset-vowel timing. In order to test this we recorded articulography data for Polish and systematically varied the coarticulation resistance of C2 in #C1C2V clusters. We examined singleton and cluster onsets with different vowel-adjacent consonants in terms of temporal lag measurements as done in previous studies as well as in terms of tongue body position measurements. Both analyses revealed parallel results and substantiate the hypothesized interaction of coarticulation resistance of the vowel-adjacent consonant and onset-vowel organization. We discuss how this interaction between articulator dominance and temporal overlap can be modeled within the gestural approach to syllable organization by giving a novel interpretation to the coupling strength parameter in terms of coarticulation resistance.