INTERSPEECH 2011 12th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association Florence, Italy August 27-31. 2011

Jaw Movement in Vowels and Liquids Forming the Syllable Nucleus

Štefan Beňuš (1), Marianne Pouplier (2)

(1) Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic
(2) LMU München, Germany

This paper investigates jaw movements in the production of Slovak syllables with and without vowels. We test the hypothesis that /l, r/ in the syllable nucleus position show a degree of jaw opening comparable to vowels, therefore providing a rising-falling sonority profile even in syllables lacking vowels. We also investigate whether the phonemic length distinction occurring for both vowels and syllabic consonants is implemented in a similar fashion for the different nucleus types. Our articulatory data show that the jaw activity during syllabic liquids is indeed comparable to that of vowels, and that the jaw is recruited to help maintain the main lingual articulation. This became evident in particular in an interaction between nucleus type and phonemic length effects.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Beňuš, Štefan / Pouplier, Marianne (2011): "Jaw movement in vowels and liquids forming the syllable nucleus", In INTERSPEECH-2011, 389-392.