Syllable and phrase structure effects on consonant sequence timing

Abstract

Both syllable and phrasal structure are known to influence articulatory timing in consonant sequences. For example, onset clusters have been reported as less overlapped and more stable in their intergestural timing than coda clusters [e.g., Byrd, J. Phonetics (1996)]. Also, consonants spanning a phrasal boundary have been observed to be less overlapped than those spanning only a word boundary [Byrd et al., LabPhon (2003)]. However, interactions between these two types of structure are less well understood; for example, it is unclear whether the intergestural timing of word-onset clusters will be perturbed at phrase boundaries, though such perturbations have been predicted [Byrd and Saltzman (2003)]. An articulatory (EMA) investigation of /s/+stop sequences produced by three speakers in a variety of syllable and phrasal positions will present kinematic data on these structural influences. Preliminary data from one speaker indicate that word-onset consonant clusters are more sensitive to prosodic context than segmentally identical coda clusters, having less overlap at successively larger boundaries. Further, while coda and onset clusters do not show a mean difference in overlap for this speaker, onset clusters do exhibit more timing stability within each phrasal context compared to corresponding coda clusters. [Work supported by NIH.]