Observations on timing of tongue gestures and stress in medial /t/ and /d/ production

Abstract

In a previous paper [M. Laferriere and O. Fujimura, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 70, S13 (1981)], movements of the tongue in the production of medial /t/ and /d/ were discussed using x-ray microbeam data. It was found that stops generally involve tongue-body fronting and blade/tip raising, whereas flaps involve only blade/tip raising; and that, for stops, stress of surrounding vowels determines the extent of dynamic tongue-body gesture. The present study examined stop and flap production in terms of tongue blade displacement, duration and velocity of transition into the consonant, and stress status of surrounding vowels. It was found that (1) peak velocity of tongue blade displacement increased as the amount of displacement increased, and (2) the tenseness of the stressed vowel following the alveolar consonant affected the degree of tongue blade displacement when the preceding vowel was unstressed.