Byrd, D., Krivokapic, J. & Lee, S (2006). How far, how long: On the temporal scope of prosodic boundary effects. Journal of Acoustical Society of America. 120(3), 1589–1599.
Presentation: Thomas
Summary: Sarah
While the lengthening effect at prosodic boundaries is extensively studied in both acoustic and articulatory domains, the scope of lengthening, nonetheless, is primarily investigated only in the acoustic, but rarely in the articulatory domain. In this regard, this study aims to explore the temporal scope of prosodic lengthening from the articulatory perspective, by tracking the movements of articulatory gestures at intonational phrase boundaries. In particular, both pre-boundary and post-boundary scopes were examined, as lengthening at these two locations are documented in the acoustic literature. Stimuli of the production experiment were three-syllable phrases all beginning with alveolar consonants (/d/ and /n/), placed before and after sentence boundaries. Articulatory sensors were adhered to subjects’ tongue tips. The measurements included the duration and displacement of the closing and opening gestural movements. Results showed that in the articulatory domain, the lengthening effect was only restricted to the immediate neighboring pre-boundary and post-boundary syllables. In addition, it was found that the opening phase of the pre-boundary syllable was more articulatorily strengthened, while for the post-boundary syllable, it was the closing phase that was more strengthened. Such findings therefore supported the π–gesture framework, proposed by Byrd and Saltzman (2003), which suggested that the boundary effect is anchored to the edge and diminishes as the syllables are further away from the boundary.
