title: Tongue/palate contact for the production of /s/ and /z/.
abstract: Productions of /s/ and /z/ by ten adult speakers were investigated using the electropalatograph (EPG). The participants, ten speech researchers who spoke English as their first language, recorded productions of /s/ and /z/ in nonsense and real words. The maximum contact frame was used as the point of reference to compare tongue/palate contact for each production. Each speaker had alveolar contact, lateral bracing and most had a midline groove for both /s/ and /z/; however, the array of contacted electrodes was unique for each speaker. The groove widths and lengths ranged from 0-3 electrodes. There was significantly greater alveolar tongue/palate contact for /z/ compared to /s/ in word-initial position, but not in word-final position for the following measures: alveolar palatal contact, medial groove width, medial groove length. However, when measures of total palate contact and centre of gravity were considered, there was a complex interaction between the phonemes /s/ and /z/, coarticulation with the vowel, word position, and word context (real and nonsense words).
authors.affiliation: Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia. smcleod@csu.edu.au
authors.forename: Sharynne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McLeod
authors.forename: Amber
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.forename: Jodi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sita
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010159:Palate / Q000502:physiology*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology*; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D014059:Tongue / Q000502:physiology*