Electromyographic and Acoustical Study of the Production of Certain Final Clusters

Abstract

This study attempted to answer the question: What is the difference, if any in the acoustical and articulatory characteristics of /f/ in utterance final position and /f/ embedded in final clusters. Spectrographic analysis of acoustical records was made. An index of articulation was provided by electromyograms recorded from muscles concerned with the production of /f/. The acoustic representation of /f/ was found to be different depending on its context. In particular, the duration of /f/ was greatest when /f/ was in final position, and varied, depending on context, in other positions. On the other hand, the muscle-potential patterns were similar for all positions of /f/. Electromyograms taken from the corner of the lip showed a peak at the onset of /f/ friction, similar rise times and decay periods for the muscle-potential burst, and similar amplitudes. The change in duration of /f/ from final to prefinal position, therefore, seems to involve merely a change in timing of the production of other phonemes in relation to /f/, rather than reorganization of the articulatory gesture of /f/ itself.