Coarticulation and theories of extrinsic timing

Abstract

Current accounts of coarticulation belong to a single class of theory, here called extrinsic timing theories of speech production. The accounts all assume that the dimension of time is excluded from the specification of a phonological segment in the articulatory plan for an utterance, and all of them fail to explain or predict the coarticulatory patterns of speech. Here I suggest that some of the failings are endemic to the class of extrinsic timing theories, and that a more adequate account must derive from an intrinsic timing theory. The essential characteristics of an intrinsic timing theory are described.