Abstract:
This study investigates the effect of position-in-prosodic-domain on the velic and lingual articulation of French consonants and vowels. The segments were placed in five different prosodic positions: Utterance-initial, intonational phrase-initial, accentual phrase-initial, word-initial, and syllable-initial. Nasal airflow (considered as an indirect measurement of velum articulation) was recorded for [n] and the open nasal vowel [(open aye)] for four French subjects. Using electropalatography, linguopalatal contact was recorded for the dental consonants [n] and [t] and for the closed vowel [i] for two French subjects. Results show that consonants that are initial in a higher prosodic domain have more linguopalatal contact and less nasal flow. Moreover, more positions are distinguished by variation in linguopalatal contact than in nasal airflow. Results for vowels show that prosodic positions are distinguished by nasal airflow for only one speaker, and by linguopalatal contact for none of the speakers. Thus position-in-prosodic-domain can affect the articulation of two remote articulators but, at least for the articulators studied, the effect is restricted to consonant articulation. [Work supported by NSF.]