Dorsopalatal Contact Research Articles

Articulatory reduction and coarticulation in Catalan three-consonant sequences.

Electropalatographic and acoustic data on Catalan /Ck#C/ sequences where # is a word boundary and /k/ is preceded by /l, s, r/ and followed by /b, m, d, l, n, z, r, ʎ/ were collected in order to test the hypothesis that the velar stop is most prone to be reduced and deleted next to consonants involving high articulatory and aerodynamic demands. Analysis results reveal the absence of a velar stop closure in about half of the sequence tokens, mostly so when /k/ occurs after /s/ and before an oral stop presumably due to the high manner of articulation requirements involved. On the other hand, /Ck#C/ sequences where a /k/ closure period is available show a prominent realization of the velar stop mostly next to /s, z/. This scenario points to two different production mechanisms for three-consonant sequences with contextual obstruents: articulatory reduction and elision, and a slowing down and an increase in articulatory salience, of the velar stop. /Ck#C/ sequences lacking an acoustic closure for /k/ were found to show a residual velar stop articulation which was implemented through an increase in cluster duration and in dorsopalatal contact at the approximate /k/ location in comparison to identical /C#C/ sequences with no /k/.

Acoustics and perception of velar softening for unaspirated stops

This paper provides articulatory, acoustic and perceptual data in support of the hypothesis that the velar softening process through which /k/ becomes /tʃ/ is based on articulation rather than on acoustic equivalence if operating on unaspirated stops. Production data for unaspirated /k/ are analyzed for five speakers of Majorcan Catalan, where the velar stop phoneme exhibits (alveolo)palatal or velar allophones depending on vowel context and position. Data on several parameters, i.e., contact anteriority and dorsopalatal contact degree, burst spectral peak frequency, energy and duration, and F2 and F3 vowel transition endpoints and ranges, suggest that /tʃ/ may have originated from (alveolo)palatal stop realizations not only before front vocalic segments but also before low and central vowels and word finally. Perception results are consistent with the production data in indicating that the most significant /tʃ/ perception cues are burst energy before /a, u/ and burst duration word/utterance finally. They also suggest that velar softening for unaspirated /k/ before front vocalic segments is triggered by an increase in burst frication energy and duration resulting from the narrowing of an (alveolo)palatal central channel occurring at stop closure release. These findings are in agreement with the existence of contextual and positional (alveolo)palatal stop allophones of /k/, and with evidence from sound change, in the Romance languages.

An electropalatographic and acoustic study of affricates and fricatives in two Catalan dialects

The present study is an electropalatographic and acoustic investigation of the fricatives /s, f/ and the affricates /ts, dz, tf, d[zcy ]/ based on data from five speakers of Majorcan Catalan and five speakers of Valencian Catalan. Results show that the articulatory characteristics of fricatives and affricates agree in several respects: the sounds traditionally labeled /f/ and /tf, d[zcy ]/ are alveolopalatal, and are articulated at a less anterior location, are less constricted and show more dorsopalatal contact than the alveolars /s/ and /ts, dz/; the two place categories are closer to each other in Valencian than in Majorcan. Compared to voiceless affricates, voiced affricates are more anterior and more constricted, and show less dorsopalatal contact. Data also show that closure location for /tf, d[zcy ]/ occurs at the alveolar zone, and that articulatory differences among affricates are better specified at frication than at closure. Strict homorganicity between the stop and frication components of affricates appears to hold provided that constriction location at frication is compared with place of articulation at closure offset. In comparison to voiceless affricates, voiced affricates were shorter, and exhibited a longer closure and a shorter frication period, in Majorcan; in Valencian, on the other hand, closures were shortest for /d[zcy ]/, and frication was systematically longer for voiceless vs. voiced affricates. These duration data appear to conform to a universal trend in Valencian but not in Majorcan where voiced affricates are lengthened intentionally. In both Catalan dialects, vowel duration varies inversely with the duration of the affricate and of its closure and frication components. The implications of these articulatory and duration characteristics for the interpretation of sound changes affecting affricates, i.e. place merging, lenition and devoicing, are discussed.

Articulatory, positional and coarticulatory characteristics for clear /l/ and dark /l/: evidence from two Catalan dialects

Electropalatographic and acoustic data reported in this study show differences in closure location and degree, dorsopalatal contact size, closure duration, relative timing of events and formant frequency between clear /l/ and dark /l/ in two dialects of Catalan (Valencian and Majorcan). The two Catalan dialects under investigation differ also regarding degree of darkness but essentially not regarding coarticulatory resistance at the word edges, i.e. the alveolar lateral is equally dark word-initially and word-finally in Majorcan, and clearer in the former position vs. than the latter in Valencian, and more resistant to vowel effects in the two positions than intervocalically in both dialects. With reference to data from the literature, it appears that languages and dialects may differ as to whether /l/ is dark or clear in all word positions or whether or not initial /l/ is clearer than final /l/, and that articulatory strengthening occurs not only word- and utterance-initially but word- and utterance-finally as well. These and other considerations confirm the hypothesis that degree of darkness in /l/ proceeds gradually rather than categorically from one language to another.

Darkness in [l] as a scalar phonetic property: implications for phonology and articulatory control

Dorsopalatal contact and F2 data for speakers of dialectal groups with dark [l] (Majorcan Catalan, Eastern Catalan) and clear [l] (German, Catalan from the València region) provide some support for the hypothesis that degree of velarization or pharyngealization in the alveolar lateral consonant does not proceed categorically but gradually across dialects. Indeed, F2 frequency data for [l] in the context of [i] reveal that darkness does not distinguish the two dialectal groups but varies gradually from dialects with a very dark realization of [l] (Mallorquí) to those with a very clear realization (Valencià) through dialects exhibiting intermediate degrees of darkness (Eastern Catalan, German). A similar scenario applies to the [a] context. This finding questions the complex, two‐gestural status of dark [l] and the notion that dark [l] should always be more coarticulation resistant than clear [l].

The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)

This paper is an electropalatographic and acoustic investigation of consonant reduction as a function of syllable position in several heterosyllabic consonant clusters of Catalan within the framework of the degree of articulatory constraint (DAC) model of coarticulation. Three contact indices, i.e., alveolar contact anteriority and centrality and dorsopalatal contact quotient, are used for the computation of the linguopalatal contact characteristics for alveolar, alveolopalatal and velar consonants, with care taken to differentiate contextual effects from effects associated with syllable position. Results show that relatively unconstrained stops, nasals and laterals are produced with less front lingual contact and less dorsopalatal contact in syllable final vs. syllable initial position while this is not so for highly constrained fricatives and rhotics. A trend for the palatal fricative vs. the alveolar fricative to exhibit a wider constriction syllable finally vs. syllable initially is also attributed to stricter demands on constriction formation for the latter fricative vs. the former. Overall, these findings are in agreement with the notion that articulatory reduction in syllable final position is conditioned by constraints on consonantal production.

Patterns of jaw coarticulatory direction and linguomandibular coordination in VCV sequences

Data on lingual movement, dorsopalatal contact and F2 frequency presented in previous papers of ours (Recasens, 2002; Recasens and Pallarès, 2001; Recasens, Pallarès and Fontdevila, 1997) suggest that the degree of articulatory constraint (DAC) model accounts to a large extent for the extent and direction of tongue dorsum coarticulation in VCV and CC sequences. A goal of this investigation is to verify the predictions of this model with respect to jaw V-to-V effects in VCV sequences using articulatory movement data collected with electromagnetic articulometry (EMA).

A Study of F1 Coarticulation in VCV Sequences

This study investigates F1 coarticulatory patterns in a large sample of VCV sequences with 7 consonants and 2 vowels uttered by 5 Catalan speakers. Measures of the size and the temporal extent of anticipatory and carryover coarticulation were obtained for the consonantal effects during the adjacent vowels, for the vocalic effects at the consonantal period, and during each transconsonantal vowel; F1 coarticulatory patterns are interpreted in the light of coarticulation data for the jaw and for dorsopalatal contact and F2 reported in the literature. Results show that consonantal effects reflect trends in lingual and jaw coarticulation, whereas vocalic effects are mostly in agreement with jaw coarticulatory trends. This finding is consistent with the view that consonantal and vocalic gestures overlap in VCV sequences and are ruled by relatively independent articulatory subsystems.

An Electropalatographic and Acoustic Study of Temporal Coarticulation for Catalan Dark/l/ and German Clear/l/

Electropalatographic and F2 frequency data in /VlV/ sequences reveal more prominent C-to-V effects for Catalan dark /l/ than for German clear /l/, more so in the /i/ context than in the /a/ context, which is in agreement with the existence of high lingual requirements on the formation of two constriction places for dark /l/. German clear /l/ exerts a similar amount of F2 displacement on both vowels which may be indicative of the tongue dorsum being directed towards a target position; this is also suggested by dorsopalatal contact and formant frequency data showing less vowel-dependent variability than clear /l/ in other languages though more so than Catalan dark /l/. Salient anticipatory requirements for the implementation of /l/ in the two languages block V1-dependent carryover effects to a large extent which results in more prominent vocalic anticipation than vocalic carryover. This directionality trend in vocalic coarticulation is more obvious for Catalan dark /l/ than for German clear /l/ (in agreement with the former consonantal variety requiring more anticipation than the latter) and opposes German /l/ to clear /l/ in other languages (i.e., the less constrained /l/ variety of Spanish may favor vocalic carryover over vocalic anticipation in VCV sequences).

A model of lingual coarticulation based on articulatory constraints

The magnitude and temporal extent of consonantal and vocalic coarticulation are reported for VCV sequences with two vowels (/i/, /a/) and seven consonants (/p/, /n/, dark /l/, /s/, /∫/, /ɲ/,/k/). Different degrees of articulatory constraint, or DAC values, are assigned to the consonants and vowels based on knowledge of their articulatory properties, in particular, the degree of involvement of the tongue dorsum in closure or constriction formation. Mean results on dorsopalatal contact and F2 frequency for five speakers of the Catalan language are presented. Predictions based on the DAC value for consonants and vowels account satisfactorily for the C-to-V effects (e.g., those for /ɲa/ are more prominent that those for /pi/); moreover, vowel-dependent effects tend to be negatively correlated with the DAC value for the consonant (e.g., they are more prominent when the intervocalic consonant is /p/ than when it is dark /l/). V-to-C effects are also conditioned by the tongue-dorsum position for the consonantal gesture. Coarticulatory directionality trends reveal that the extent to which the vowel-dependent tongue-dorsum activity may be anticipated is closely linked to the mechanico-inertial constraints associated with the tongue dorsum during consonantal production; this observation explains the salience of the vowel-dependent anticipatory effects in VCV sequences favoring C-to-V anticipation and of the vowel-dependent carryover effects in VCV sequences giving special weight to C-to-V carryover.

Co-articulatory variability and articulatory-acoustic correlations for consonants.

This paper is an investigation of articulatory-acoustic correlations differing in degree of articulatory constraint. Data on F2 and on dorsopalatal contact (electropalatographic, EPG) were collected for the sequences /iCi/ and /aC./ with seven Catalan consonants differing in place and manner of articulation (velarised /l/, /n/, /n/, /s/, /f/, /l/, /p/). These consonants are characterised by different degrees of tongue dorsum constraint depending on their production requirements (dorsals > non-dorsals, fricatives > non-fricatives, etc.). The results showed an inverse relationship between vowel-dependent coarticulation and the degree of consonant-dependent articulatory constraint. F2 and dorsopalatal contact size were found to be positively correlated across consonants and speakers, and across consonants for each individual speaker. Correlation values were much lower for each consonant across speakers. These findings are discussed in the light of the acoustic theory of speech production and possible clinical applications are suggested.

Velarization degree and coarticulatory resistance for /I/ in Catalan and German

This paper compares formant values and patterns of linguopalatalcontact for [I] in the sequences [iIi] and [ala] in both Catalan and German, in order to determine whether differences in consonantal velarization between the two languages influence the degree of vowel-to-consonant coarticulation. Significant F 2 and F 2- F, differences for [I] in the sequence [ili]indicate that the consonant is velarized in Catalan and non-velarized in German; F 2 data for male speakers show a 1500Hz threshold between the two consonantal varieties. This language-dependent significant difference was not found to hold for the dorsopalatal contact as measured by electropalatography; there is, however, a clear trend for dorsal contact at the palatal zone for German [I] to exceed that for Catalan [I]. Moreover, F 2 values suggest that the consonant may be less non-velarized in German than in other languages (Italian, Spanish, French). The degree of coarticulation was not inversely related to the degree of velarization in the case analyzed in this paper, i.e., coarticulatory effects from [i] vs. [a] on [I] were not significantly different in German vs. Catalan. Velarized [I] in Catalan is highly resistant to coarticulatory effects from [i] since the two phonetic segments are produced with antagonistic tongue dorsum gestures, i.e., tongue dorsum lowering and retraction, and tongue dorsum raising and fronting. While being non-velarized, German [I] appears to be highly resistant to coarticulatory effects from [i] vs. [a]: F, values for [I] in both vowel environments are less extreme in German than in other languages showing a non-velarized variety of the consonant. These findings suggest that the tongue dorsum for German [I] attains some target position, and are in support of the notion that the velarization/non-velarization distinction proceeds in a scalar, noncategorical fashion.

Electropalatographic data collected with and without a face mask.

This study investigates the extent to which the use of a face mask conveys linguopalatal contact changes during speech production. Electropalatographic data from five Catalan speakers were collected for different consonants, i.e., the alveolar stop [n], the alveolopalatal stop [n] and the palatal approximant [j], in the sequences [iCi] and [aCe]. Results for [n] indicate more closure retraction in the mask versus nonmask condition occurring presumably when the mask is pressed forcefully against the face in front of the mouth. The use of the mask for [n] and [j] causes an increase in dorsopalatal contact, which reflects most likely a strategy of articulatory and/or perceptual compensation.