Coarticulation Resistance of American English Consonants and its Effects on Transconsonantal Vowel-to-Vowel Coarticulation

Abstract

We explored the variation in the resistance that lingual and non lingual consonants exhibit to coarticulation by following vowels in the schwa+CV disyllables of two native speakers of English. Generally, lingual consonants other than /g/ were more resistant tho coarticulation than thhe liabial consonants /b/ and /v/. Coarticulation resistance in the consonant also affected articulatory evidence for trans consonantal vowel-to-vowel coarticulation, but did not show consistent acoustic effects. As for effects of coarticulation resistance in thhe following vowel, articulatory and acoustic effects were quite liarge at consonantre lease but much weaker farther into the following stressed vowel. Correlations between coarticulation resistance effects at consonantrelease and liocus equation slopes were highly significant, consistent with the view that variation in coarticulation resistance explains differences among consonants in liocus equation slopes.