title: Formant transitions in varied utterance positions.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Acoustic characteristics associated with varied utterance positions were examined to understand the acoustic consequences of potential articulatory changes near utterance boundaries.
  
  
  METHODS
  Second formant transition characteristics, including transition duration (ms), transition extent (Hz), and derived slope of transition (Hz/ms), of 12 healthy speakers of American English were examined for two diphthong transitions in sew and sigh and one consonant-vowel transition in bee in utterance-initial, utterance-final, and utterance-end positions. Speakers performed a task of contrastive stress variation that served to demonstrate the changeability of acoustic characteristics as an index of articulatory change in shaping the vocal tract.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Contrastive stress, as compared to words spoken without increased stress, was associated with longer transition duration, greater transition extent, and a decreased slope. Although some utterance position effects were present, no systematic differences consistent with boundary strengthening or declination were found.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Findings suggest that varied utterance positions may be associated with stimulus-dependent variation in articulatory changes that is reflected in the acoustic output. These results indicate the need to further understand the construct of utterance-level speech materials, such as carrier phrases, in clinical practice and research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communicative Disorders and Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisc., USA.
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kuo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012984:Software; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013062:Speech Articulation Tests; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D055815:Young Adult