Acoustic characteristics of plosives in consonant-consonant sequences at word boundaries

In this paper we describe acoustic characteristics of aspiration, explosiveness and tension of plosives within the framework of consonant sequences at boundaries of two words extracted from German read speech. In these sequences (66 types) the prejuncture consonants (in final position in the preceding word) were limited to the plosives p/t/k, whereas the post-juncture consonants (in initial position in the following word) could consist of the entire set of German consonants. The proposed order of sounds at word boundaries enables to trace modifications of the plosives in question and degree of their correlation with a number of positional-combinatory and prosodic factors, namely type of following consonant, presence of pause inside the sequence, position of plosives in rhythmic groups with regards to tone syllable.