Abstract

There is a longstanding interest in understanding the production mechanisms of the American English (AE) rhotic, /ɹ/ especially given both the wide intraspeaker variability and interspeaker heterogeneity in its articulation, and the resultant acoustics. A diversity of tongue shapes, from those creating a more anterior tongue-tip (“retroflex”) constriction to those with a more posterior bunched tongue dorsum constriction, has been observed with notable intraspeaker variation as a function of context; more specifically, a tendency for retroflexion preceding low and/or back vowels. The present study aims to analyze AE /ɹ/ production using real-time MRI videos (83 frames/s) where the target sound was produced in several contexts by 32 American English speakers (16 F/16 M). Initial findings in symmetric VCV production reveal that some of these speakers exclusively use a “retroflex” strategy, some a “bunched” strategy …

Date

2019

Authors

Bianca P Godinez, Asterios Toutios, Shrikanth S Narayanan

Journal

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

Volume

146

Issue

4_Supplement

Pages

3083-3083

Publisher

Acoustical Society of America