Onset-vowel timing as a function of coarticulation resistance: Evidence from articulatory data

We recorded articulatory data to investigate the influence of consonantal coarticulation resistance on consonant-vowel timing in Polish onset clusters. While recent studies found different onset-vowel timing patterns depending on the position of the sibilant within the cluster, it is widely unknown how onset-vowel timing interacts with different degrees of coarticulation resistance of the vowel-adjacent consonant. Thus we examined articulatory data of singleton and cluster onsets with different voweladjacent consonants varying in their coarticulation resistance. The results suggest a systematic change in CV overlap between singleton and cluster condition with most overlap for less resistant consonants /m, p, k/ and no changing overlap for most resistant consonants /s, S/. Sonorants /n, l/ show intermediate CV overlap patterns. These results confirm that onset-vowel timing interacts with coarticulation resistance and strengthen the assumption that syllable organization depends on the composition of the entire syllable.