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

Lip Laws for Consonants

John R. Westbury (1), Elizabeth J. Severson (1), Michiko Hashi (2)

(1) University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
(2) ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories, Kyoto, Japan

Sagittal-plane positions of small markers attached in the midline at the vermillion border of both lips were measured at moments when the inter-marker distance was shortest during each of 21 American English consonants, produced by 52 speakers. Direct measures of marker positions, and derived estimates of midline lip protrusion and separation, were averaged across speakers to form a descriptive catalogue of consonant-related lip actions from these simple, twodimensional data. In general, distributions of averaged lip-marker positions revealed expected sound clusters, in the form of natural phonetic classes, and a strong linear relation between lip separation and protrusion. A main benefit of our analysis is a richly developed functional context within which we can better understand certain kinematic mechanisms underlying lip postures for consonants.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Westbury, John R. / Severson, Elizabeth J. / Hashi, Michiko (1999): "Lip laws for consonants", In ICPhS-14, 2025-2028.