Variability in jaw height for segments in English and Swedish VCVs

Abstract

This study compares the extent of coarticulatory influences of vowels on consonants and consonants on vowels in VCV utterances from English and Swedish speakers. Three vowels and ten consonants form the VCV utterances, with V1 = V2 and the nuclear stress on the second vowel. The measure of coarticulation is the vertical height of the jaw, which was determined using the Stockholm University Movetrack magnetometer system. Results of the experiment indicate that the two languages behave similarly overall, and that vowels are overall more open and overall more variable than are consonants. However, little of the variation in vowel height is attributable to consonant context, whereas much of the variation in consonant height is attributable to vowel context, and the effect of vowel context on consonant height is statistically reliable whereas the effect of consonant context on vowel height is not. These results support the proposal by Lindholm (1983) that consonant segments may accommodate their jaw heights to those of neighboring vowels. The results also weakly support his proposal that consonants differ in their propensity to coarticulate, with álveolar consonants showing less effect of vowel context and /h/ the most.