An experimental study of coarticulation in american english V+/l/ and V+/r/ sequences

Identificador:  TDX:2374

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX2374

Autors:  Riera Toló, María

Resum:
This dissertation presents an experimental study of coarticulation in final V+/l/ and V+/r/ sequences in American English stressed monosyllables. The details of the VC coarticulatory processes are investigated in an attempt to contribute to a better understanding of the phonetic and phonological nature of these sequences. Previous accounts of this phenomenon provided phonological explanations in terms of segmental insertion or epenthesis and were limited to a small set of vowels. The present study sets out to show that VC transitions are best understood as the result of a phonetic process of coarticulation which is present in all the vowels of the language. For this purpose, two variables, speaking rate and context, were manipulated and acoustic data were obtained from six native speakers of American English. The roles of speaking rate and context are determined by looking into the durational and spectral variability in the vowel and the transition as well as by comparing durational and spectral values in the vowel and the transition across different speaking rates (i.e., slow and fast) and contexts (i.e., each of the vowels in the V+/l/ and V+/r/ sequences). The results not only provide evidence of the existence of such coarticulatory processes in all contexts, but they also reveal the nature and extent of VC coarticulation in V+/l/ and V+/r/ sequences. In particular, these data show the durational and spectral characteristics of both the vowel and a dynamic vocalic element in the VC transition whose presence is explained in relation to the vowel. The high variability observed in the transitional element as a function of context and, especially, rate is taken as evidence that the transition is the result of a process of coarticulation rather than insertion or epenthesis.