V-C-V Lingual Coarticulation and Its Spatiotemporal Domain

Abstract

Recent literature on coarticulation shows that VCV coarticulatory effects are the result of the cooccurrence of context-independent overlapping gestures and of context-dependent gestures. Interlanguage and inter-category differences in degree of coarticulation seem to be due to differences in the competing demands on common articulators, which in turn depend on the articulatory/acoustic requirements for both the influencing and the influenced sounds. As for VCV lingual coarticulation, this paper proposes a coarticulation index defined palatographically, which quantifies the spatial range of coarticulation at different points in time within a VCV sequence. For some selected Italian consonants it is shown that, in agreement with Recasens' model (1987, 1989), coarticulation of tongue body varies inversely with the degree of tongue dorsum elevation. This holds for the voiced/voiceless distinction in single and in geminated dentoalveolar stops, for the place-of-articulation distinction in laterals, and for variations in stress and speaking rate. It is argued that the coarticulatorv behaviour in the spatial domain can largely explain the temporal extent of coarticulation in both the anticipatory and the carryover directions.