Intraoral Air Pressures Associated with Stop Consonants in Various Phonetic Environments

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that intraoral air pressures associated with stop consonants vary as a function of the contextual environment of the consonant (initial, medial, or final syllable position). In the present study, the effect of adjacent phonemes on the intraoral air pressures for the stop consonants /p/, /b/, /t/, and /d/ was investigated. Recordings of peak intraoral air pressures were obtained from five subjects for each of the four stop consonants in the environment of high front vowels, low front vowels, high back vowels, low back vowels, and other consonants. Highest intraoral air pressures were associated with the stop consonants in the consonant environment; the next highest pressures were associated with the high vowel environment while the lowest pressures occurred in the low vowel environment. No differences in intraoral pressures for the four stop consonants were observed in comparison of the front and back vowel environments. These findings can be interpretd as reflecting a coarticulation effect and thereby demonstrate that phonetic environment does affect the magnitude of the intraoral air pressures associated with stop consonants. The data from the present study also support the trend reported in previous studies for higher intraoral pressures to be associated with voiceless consonants.