At the Juncture of Prosody, Phonology, and Phonetics— the Interaction of Phrasal and Syllable Structure in Shaping the Timing of Consonant Gestures

The Laboratory Phonology research paradigm has established that abstract phonological structure has direct reflections in the spatiotemporal details of speech production. Past exploration of the complex relationship between linguistic structural properties and articulation has resulted in a softening of a severance between phonetics and phonology, which in recent years has begun to likewise encompass the phonetics-prosody interface. The abstract organization not only of words, but also of phrases, has a complex and rich effect on the articulatory details of speech production. This paper considers how phonological and prosodic structure interact in shaping the temporal realization of consonant sequences. Specifically, we examine the influence on articulatory timing of syllable structure effects in onset, coda, and heterosyllabic positions, and prosodic effects in the vicinity of a variety of phrase boundary conditions that grade in strength. Simultaneously, this work seeks to test and refine the π-gesture theoretical model of prosodic representation in speech production (Byrd & Saltzman 2003).