Articulatory reduction and coarticulation in Catalan three-consonant sequences (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Effect of Contextual Consonants on Voiced Stop Lenition: Evidence from Catalan
Language and Speech, 2015
This study uses acoustic energy measures for /b, d, g/ after /f, s, ʃ, l, r/ in Catalan in order to test whether postconsonantal voiced stop lenition is ruled by minimization of articulatory effort, acoustico-perceptual continuity of an ongoing prosodic constituent or some other principle of articulatory organization. Data for eight speakers reveal that lenition is more prone to operate on /g/ than on /b, d/, after a sonorant than after a fricative, and when the two cluster consonants are heterorganic than when they are (quasi)-homorganic. Moreover, a positive correlation was found to hold between the degrees of stop lenition and stop voicing. The /fC/ sequences had an exceptional behaviour since, in comparison to other consonants appearing in C1 position, /f/ was at the same time less intense and triggered more stop-like realizations of /b, d, g/. These results indicate that, while regularly treated as a phonological process, postconsonantal voiced stop lenition in Catalan is subje...
Articulatory constraints on stop insertion and elision in consonant clusters
Linguistics, 2011
This study claims that, in contrast with previous proposals in the literature, essentially all instances of stop epenthesis in two consonant clusters (e.g., [ml] > [mbl], [ls] > [lts], [wl] > [wgl]) may be attributed to the articulatory requirements and aerodynamic constraints involved in the production of the original cluster. The inserted stop results from the perceptual categorization of a transitional closure event. Several mechanisms may give rise to this momentary stoppage of air, and to an intraoral pressure rise which causes the stop burst to become prominent enough so that the emergent stop can be successfully perceived. Apparently exceptional cases such as [nl] > [ngl] and [sl] > [skl] are accounted for through direct epenthesis assuming that [l] is strongly dark and thus, produced with a back postdorsal constriction. Data on stop deletion in consonant clusters appear to be in support of this production-based explanation of stop insertion.
The effect of syllable position on consonant reduction (evidence from Catalan consonant clusters)
Journal of Phonetics, 2004
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. r
Articulatory constraints on stop insertion in consonant clusters
2011
This study claims that, in contrast with previous proposals in the literature, essentially all instances of stop epenthesis in two consonant clusters (e.g., [ml] > [mbl], [ls] > [lts], [wl] > [wgl]) may be attributed to the articulatory requirements and aerodynamic constraints involved in the production of the original cluster. The inserted stop results from the perceptual categorization of a transitional closure event. Several mechanisms may give rise to this momentary stoppage of air, and to an intraoral pressure rise which causes the stop burst to become prominent enough so that the emergent stop can be successfully perceived. Apparently exceptional cases such as [nl] > [ngl] and [sl] > [skl] are accounted for through direct epenthesis assuming that [l] is strongly dark and thus, produced with a back postdorsal constriction. Data on stop deletion in consonant clusters appear to be in support of this production-based explanation of stop insertion.
Coarticulation, assimilation and blending in Catalan consonant clusters
Journal of Phonetics, 2001
Electropalatographic data on C-to-C coarticulatory e!ects were analyzed for consonant clusters composed of an extensive set of Catalan consonants, i.e., dentals (t), alveolars (n, dark l, s, trilled r), alveolopalatals (ʃ, V, E), palatals ( j) and velars (k). Regarding tongue dorsum coarticulation, results show that consonantal e!ects in CC clusters are more prominent than vocalic e!ects in VCV sequences which is attributed to di!erences in articulatory control between consonants and vowels. Moreover, tongue dorsum lowering for the alveolar fricative and for the alveolar trill appears to be more coarticulation resistant than tongue dorsum raising and fronting for alveolopalatals. Data at the place of articulation show some interesting trends: on the one hand, sequences made of dentals (t), and fronter alveolars and alveolopalatals (i.e., n, l, V, E) yield articulatory blending; on the other hand, any of these consonants may assimilate to those alveolar and alveolopalatal consonants which exhibit a more retracted place of articulation (s, r, ʃ ), but not vice versa. These "ndings are in agreement with the &°ree of articulatory constraint'' (DAC) model which relates coarticulatory and assimilatory e!ects to the degree of articulatory constraint involved in consonantal production, and predicts that fricatives and trills should be highly constrained both at the tongue front and at the tongue dorsum. Data on the relative strength of the anticipatory and carry-over e!ects reported in this paper are also to a large extent in agreement with predictions of the DAC model.
Lingual kinematics and coarticulation for alveolopalatal and velar consonants in Catalan
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2010
Vertical lingual movement data for the alveolopalatal consonants /ʃ/ and /F/ and for the dorsovelar consonant /k/ in Catalan /aCa/ sequences produced by three speakers reveal that the tongue body travels a smaller distance at a slower speed and in a longer time during the lowering period extending from the consonant into the following vowel ͑CV͒ than during the rising period extending from the preceding vowel into the consonant ͑VC͒. For two speakers, two-phase trajectories characterized by two successive velocity peaks occur more frequently during the former period than during the latter, whether associated with tongue blade and dorsum ͑for alveolopalatals͒ or with the tongue dorsum articulator alone ͑for velars͒. Greater tongue dorsum involvement for /F/ and /k/ than for /ʃ/ accounts for a different kinematic relationship between the four articulatory phases. The lingual gesture for alveolopalatals and, less so, that for velars may exert more prominent spatial and temporal effects on V2 than on V1 which is in agreement with the salience of the C-to-V carryover component associated with these consonants according to previous coarticulation studies. These kinematic and coarticulation data may be attributed to tongue dorsum biomechanics to a large extent.
Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 2012
Data for closure duration and the stop burst, as well as on the duration of the adjacent phonetic segments, reveal that speakers of Valencian Catalan produce differently the clusters /lts/ and /ls/, and /rts/ and /rs/, where /t/ is an underlying phoneme in /lts, rts/ and stop epenthesis may occur in /ls, rs/. Only a subset of speakers contrast the production of the nasal cluster pairs /mps/-/ms/ and /nts/-/ns/. Stop epenthesis applies regularly in the sequences /ms, ns, ls, ¥s,¯s/ but the inserted segment is only phonetically robust in the two latter clusters with an alveolopalatal consonant and to some extent in /ns/, and practically absent in the sequence /rs/. Differences in prominence for the stop consonant, whether underlying or epenthetic, occur as a function of the segmental composition of the cluster, as well as of utterance position and syllable and word affiliation. In conjunction with results from perception tests, it is claimed that these data contribute to our understanding of oral stop deletion after a (quasi-)homorganic consonant in word final clusters without /s/ in other dialects of Catalan and perhaps other languages.
Patterns of Constriction Degree in Spanish Heterorganic Consonant Sequences
2019
This study explores some of the predictions made by the theory of Articulatory Phonology regarding the combined effects of distinct constriction degrees at the global vocal tract level. Data from peninsular Spanish are used to test whether the constriction degrees of two adjacent heterorganic consonants (stop+stop or stop+nasal) in words such as abdicar or abnegar influence each other as a function of context and speaking rate. Results show a variety of patterns in constriction degree realization, ranging from full occlusion to wide lenition for both consonants in the sequence. In addition, Pearson correlation coefficients show strong positive correlations between the constriction degrees of the consonants in the sequences, especially when they are both voiced stops, but also in stop+nasal combinations. These results are taken as evidence that the constriction degree of an individual gesture can have output effects at the vocal tract level beyond the individual gesture's constri...
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This paper looks for an interpretation of the phonetic factors causing consonant lenition and elision to occur through an analysis of intervocalic [j] in Majorcan, a dialect of Catalan spoken in the Mediterranean island of Majorca. Articulatory and acoustic data for several Majorcan Catalan speakers still producing the palatal glide in all word positions and segmental environments show that the consonant is lower and more variable in intervocalic position than word initially and word finally. Lowering is enhanced by the presence of contextual low and mid low front vowels, mostly so if stressed and placed immediately after the palatal glide. Inspection of [VjV] formant trajectories suggests that, in spite of undergoing articulatory reduction, [j] is produced with an independent articulatory gesture; moreover, coarticulatory effects between the palatal glide and the following vowel may render the former phonetic segment perceptually indistinguishable from the latter and thus prone to undergo elision. Strongly lenited variants of intervocalic [j] appear to be receding, and conservative speakers show specially low realizations of the palatal glide which may have been widely spread among the speaking population at the time that the intervocalic consonant underwent systematic elision in some areas of Majorca in the past. These findings are in support of the notion that the lenition and subsequent elision of intervocalic consonants are assisted by contextual and prosodic factors.
Journal of Phonetics, 2006
[h] (lateral) may exhibit two places of articulation, i.e., alveolopalatal and palatal proper, depending not only on vowel context but on position and speaker as well. In this Catalan dialect, [E] and [h] have phonological status while [c] is an allophone of /k/ and is articulated at a fronter location than front /k/ in languages such as English. Several consonant-dependent differences appear to be of universal validity, i.e., a trend for [E] and [h] to exhibit a more anterior closure location than [c] (perhaps due to manner requirements) or else for [c] and [E] to share a similar place of articulation (presumably for the sake of articulatory economy), and more stability for closures formed at the alveolopalatal zone than at the mediopalate. The three palatal consonants exhibit more overall contact, fronting and duration but also more coarticulation utterance initially than utterance finally (and even intervocalically) thus suggesting that they may blend with the adjacent vowel rather than resisting its influence in the former position while failing to undergo substantial articulatory reduction in the latter. r