Exercises in ‘‘absurdity:’’ Interactions between flapping and tongue position in American English with implications for speech motor planning

Abstract

Articulatory conflicts can prevent the achievement of production targets, forcing decisions regarding the resolution of these conflicts. Observing which strategies are chosen can help us to understand relative priorities in speech planning and phonology [Wood, J. Phonetics (1996)]. One particularly felicitous case of such a conflict is the interaction between tongue tip position for English /r/ and vowels and the flapping of /t/ and /d/. This study presents data from ultrasound imaging of tongue kinematics and acoustic output during productions of words containing sequences of vowels, flaps and /r/’s. Results show that for at least some speakers of North American English, a flap may be produced either up (from tip-down to retroflex, as in ‘‘Jupiter’’) or down (from retroflex to tip-down, as in ‘‘puberty’’). For the one speaker analyzed to date, r-flap-r (‘‘frankfurter’’) and V-flap-V (‘‘taffeta’’) begin in the correct position for the leftmost segment in each sequence (retroflex and tip-down, respectively). However, ‘‘double flaps’’ start in tongue down position (‘‘Saturday,’’ ‘‘editor’’), even when it forces compromise of multiple vowel/liquid tongue positions (‘‘absurdity’’). Flap kinematics thus take precedence over tongue position (and therefore acoustic realization) for vowels/liquids. Additional results will be presented. [Research supported by NSERC and NIH.]