The scope of effect of prosodic boundaries in articulation

Abstract

An articulatory study of the scope of prosodic boundary effects across boundaries of varying strengths is presented. Sentences in each of three prosodic conditions contain the following string: C1VC2VC3♯VC4VC5VC6, where C is an alveolar consonant, V is a vowel, and ♯ is a prosodic boundary. The boundaries are of three degrees of strength. Using articulator movement-tracking data (EMA) for the tongue tip articulator, consonant constriction formation and release duration, acceleration duration, and spatial magnitude are measured. Leftward and rightward temporal effects of the boundary on the consonants are investigated. Based on earlier studies (e.g. Cambier-Langeveld, Linguistics in the Netherlands, 13–24, 1997; Shattuck-Hufnagel and Turk, Proceedings 16th International congress on Acoustics and 135th Meeting Acoustical Society of America, 1235–1236, 1998; Berkovits, J. of Phonetics 21, 479–489, 1993) and predictions of the prosodic gestural model (Byrd and Saltzman, J. of Phonetics, 31, 149–180, 2003), it is expected that (1) the amount of articulatory lengthening will increase with boundary strength and (2) the degree of lengthening will decrease with distance from the boundary. Three subjects participated. The results show that at the boundary, gestures have longer constriction and acceleration durations, and the effect of the boundary increases with boundary strength, distinguishing up to three levels of boundary strength. The effect is local and diminishes with distance from the boundary. These results support the initial hypotheses. [Work supported by NIH.]