14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999


Anticipatory Labial Activity in the Production of French Rounded Vowels

Béatrice Vaxelaire (1,3), Rudolph Sock (1,2,3), Jean-François Bonnot (3), Dominique Keller (2)

(1) Institut de Phonétique de Strasbourg - Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, France
(2) Institut de la Communication Parlée de Grenoble, Université Stendhal-INPG, France
(3) Laboratoire de Psychobiologie du Comportement Moteur et des Sports - Université Marc Bloch, Strasbourg, France

In this investigation, movement data on articulator gestures are examined, in order to understand timing principles underlying the production of French rounded vowels. The extent of anticipatory labial and lingual activities, tied to vowel production, is analyzed in different consonantal contexts. X-ray and acoustic data are acquired from two speakers producing sentences at two speaking rates. Results show that anticipatory extents are comparable in single consonant contexts, and that loading the obstruent interval with a sequence of plosives restrains the anticipatory gestures. Increasing speaking rate provokes speeding up of articulatory activity and compression of acoustic durations, but does not significantly modify the relative timing of these anticipatory gestures.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Vaxelaire, Béatrice / Sock, Rudolph / Bonnot, Jean-François / Keller, Dominique (1999): "Anticipatory labial activity in the production of French rounded vowels", In ICPhS-14, 53-56.