Daniel Recasens
Dept. of Catalan Philology, Univ. Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Joaquin Romero
Haskins Labs., New Haven, CT 06511
Alveolopalatal consonants such as /(left hooked en)/ (as in French baigner ``to bathe'') have been described as complex segments, composed of a tongue-tip gesture and a tongue-dorsum gesture, since they show extensive palatal contact. Evidence from electropalatographic data suggests, however, that alveolopalatals are simple segments produced with a single tongue-blade gesture and that the observed palatal contact does not result from the presence of an independent dorsal gesture, but from articulatory coupling effects. In order to further test the issue of segmental complexity in alveolopalatals, the articulatory characteristics of the Catalan alveolopalatal phoneme /(left hooked en)/ were compared to those of a truly complex segment involving two independent tongue-front and tongue-dorsum gestures: the Russian palatalized alveolar phoneme /n[sup j]/. An electromagnetic measuring device was used to obtain tongue movement data from a Catalan speaker and a Russian speaker for several consonants. Results show that, while in Catalan /(left hooked en)/, tongue tip, tongue blade, and tongue dorsum achieve the constriction at essentially the same time, Russian /n[sup j]/ shows a progression in the achievement of the target from tongue tip to tongue dorsum. This finding supports the hypothesis that Catalan alveolopalatal /(left hooked en)/ is a simple segment, whereas Russian palatalized alveolar /n[sup j]/ is complex. [Work supported by NIH Grant Nos. DC-00121 and HD-01994 to Haskins Laboratories and by ESPRIT-BRA 6975 ``Speech Maps'' Project of the European Community.]