Patterns of interarticulator phasing relations

Abstract

The difficulty in identifying phonetic segments in the acoustic signal of speech is a commonly recognized problem. One proposed solution is that the integrity of individual segments is maintained by stable timing relations between the articulators. Recently, Kelso and Tuller [e.g., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. Suppl. 1 77, S53 (1985)] reported an invariant relation between jaw and lip gestures in various VCV contexts. Specifically, the onset of upper lip lowering for the intervocalic consonant was found to have a constant relation to the vowel‐to‐vowel jaw cycle in both time and position‐velocity phase‐plane domains. In this paper, we examine the additional effects of syllable affiliation and intervening consonant identity. The data show that the upper lip's lowering onset, relative to the position‐velocity state of the jaw (phase angle), varied as a function of speaking rate and stress. In addition, the position of the syllable boundary (before or after the intervocalic consonant) and the consonant identity (p vs...