Some notes on syllable structure in articulatory phonology.
Two approaches to seeking stable patterns in the gestural organization of speech are examined: local organization (individual gestures coordinated with other individual gestures) and global organization (gestures forming larger conglomerates). Articulatory evidence from American English words with a variety of initial consonants and clusters shows that syllable-initial consonants form a global organization (indexed by a metric we term the C-center) that is coordinated with the syllable's vowel gesture. For syllable-final consonants, however, the evidence suggests that a local organization is employed: The first postvocalic consonant gesture is coordinated with the vowel gesture. Implications of these different styles of organization for the perceptual and phonological structure of speech are discussed.
Browman
C P
CP
Department of Linguistics, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.
Goldstein
L
L
D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008046:Lip / Q000502:physiology*; D010700:Phonetics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014059:Tongue / Q000502:physiology*