An EMA/EPG study of vowel‐to‐vowel articulation across velars in Southern British English

Abstract

Recent studies have attested that the extent of transconsonantal vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation is at least partly dependent on degree of prosodic accentuation, in languages like English. A further important factor is the mutual compatibility of consonant and vowel gestures associated with the segments in question. In this study two speakers of standard southern British English produced sequences of /э#kV#kV/ sequences where the identity of V was either /i/ or /a/, and nuclear accent placement was varied systematically. A combined technique of EPA and EMA was used, as well as spectrographic measures. Results indicate that there were only minimal transconsonantal coarticulatory effects between the two full vowels /i/ and /a/, but there was evidence of dissimilation of the flanking vowels, particularly in /′kaki/ and /′kika/ sequences, suggesting that prosodically strong vowels resist vowel‐to‐vowel coarticulation. Initial schwa, however, was highly coarticulated with following /a/ and /i/, and the spatial extent of this coarticulatory effect was correlated with degree of accentuation, particularly in the case of a following /i/ vowel. The velar stops showed a high level of coarticulation with flanking /i/ vowels, supporting earlier claims by Fowler and Brancazio, that this consonant is ‘less' resistant to coarticulatory pressures than others in English.

• Coarticulation
• electromagneticarticulography
• electropalatography
• English