Underlying control strategies for the production of stop consonants

Abstract

The underlying control strategies utilized in the production of stop consonants were investigated using an electromagnetic midsagittal articulometer [J. Perkell etal., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 3078–3096 (1992)]. The movements in the midsagittal plane of points on the lower jaw, lips, tongue blade, and tongue body were measured for three normal hearing, normal speaking subjects during the production of single-syllable words composed of a stop or nasal consonant followed by the vowel /ɑ / or /i/ and the consonant /t/, and spoken in a carrier phrase. Half the tokens were preceded by the fricative consonant /s/. The data show that the maximum downward velocity of the lower jaw occurs approximately at the time of the consonant release. For /sCV/ syllables, the lower jaw is held in a high position to assist in noise generation for /s/, and consequently the movement for a following labial or velar consonant follows a time course that is different from that of /CV/ syllables. The movement of the articulators during the production of these utterances at a normal speaking rate appears to have a bandwidth limitation of 5–7 Hz. [Work supported in part by grants from NIDCD.]