14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14) San Francisco, CA, USA August 1-7, 1999

Control of Coarticulatory Patterns of Tongue and Jaw Movement in Speech

David J. Ostry (1,2), Douglas M. Shiller (1), Paul L. Gribble (1), Vincent L. Gracco (2)

(1) McGill University,Montreal, Quebec, Canada
(2) Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT, USA

Orofacial movements arise from the interaction of neural control signals with mechanical and geometrical properties of vocal tract structures. We have previously shown that in the case of jaw movement, patterns of coarticulation may arise as a consequence of muscle properties and dynamics rather than characteristics of the neural code. This finding suggests that at the level of individual articulators the nervous system may take limited account of orofacial dynamics in planning movements. In the case of multi-articulator motion the mechanical interaction of articulators may necessitate a more complex pattern of control. In order to assess the characteristics of control signals that underlie interarticulator patterning, we describe the kinematic patterns of coarticulation of tongue and jaw movements in speech. The empirically observed kinematic patterns are compared with the results of simulation studies that use a simplified model of tongue and jaw motion.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Ostry, David J. / Shiller, Douglas M. / Gribble, Paul L. / Gracco, Vincent L. (1999): "Control of coarticulatory patterns of tongue and jaw movement in speech", In ICPhS-14, 1091-1094.