Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:19:12.144Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Articulatory gestures as phonological units*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 October 2008

Catherine P. Browman  and
Louis Goldstein
Catherine P. Browman
Affiliation:
Haskins Laboratories
Louis Goldstein
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

We have argued that dynamically defined articulatory gestures are the appropriate units to serve as the atoms of phonological representation. Gestures are a natural unit, not only because they involve task-oriented movements of the articulators, but because they arguably emerge as prelinguistic discrete units of action in infants. The use of gestures, rather than constellations of gestures as in Root nodes, as basic units of description makes it possible to characterise a variety of language patterns in which gestural organisation varies. Such patterns range from the misorderings of disordered speech through phonological rules involving gestural overlap and deletion to historical changes in which the overlap of gestures provides a crucial explanatory element.

Gestures can participate in language patterns involving overlap because they are spatiotemporal in nature and therefore have internal duration. In addition, gestures differ from current theories of feature geometry by including the constriction degree as an inherent part of the gesture. Since the gestural constrictions occur in the vocal tract, which can be charactensed in terms of tube geometry, all the levels of the vocal tract will be constricted, leading to a constriction degree hierarchy. The values of the constriction degree at each higher level node in the hierarchy can be predicted on the basis of the percolation principles and tube geometry. In this way, the use of gestures as atoms can be reconciled with the use of Constriction degree at various levels in the vocal tract (or feature geometry) hierarchy.

The phonological notation developed for the gestural approach might usefully be incorporated, in whole or in part, into other phonologies. Five components of the notation were discussed, all derived from the basic premise that gestures are the primitive phonological unit, organised into gestural scores. These components include (1) constriction degree as a subordinate of the articulator node and (2) stiffness (duration) as a subordinate of the articulator node. That is, both CD and duration are inherent to the gesture. The gestures are arranged in gestural scores using (3) articulatory tiers, with (4) the relevant geometry (articulatory, tube or feature) indicated to the left of the score and (5) structural information above the score, if desired. Association lines can also be used to indicate how the gestures are combined into phonological units. Thus, gestures can serve both as characterisations of articulatory movement data and as the atoms of phonological representation.

Type
Thematic Papers
Information
Phonology , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , August 1989 , pp. 201 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abercrombie, D. (1967). Elements of general phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Abry, C. & L.-J., Böe (1986). ‘Laws’ for lips. Speech Communication 5. 97–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, J. M. & Ewen, C. J. (1987). Principles of dependency phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, S. R. (1974). The organization of phonology. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Barry, M. C. (1985). A palatographic study of connected speech processes. Cambridge Papers in Phonetics and Experimental Linguistics 4. 1–16.Google Scholar
Bell-Berti, F. & Harris, K. S. (1981). A temporal model of speech production. Phonetica 38. 9–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Best, C. T. & Wilkenfeld, D. (1988). Phonologically-motivated substitutions in a 20–22 month old's imitations of intervocalic alveolar stops. JASA 84. S114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boucher, V. (1988). For a phonology without ‘rules’: peripheral timing-structures and allophonic patterns in French and English. In Embleton, S. (ed.) The 14th LACUS Forum 1987. Lake Bluff, Ill.: Linguistic Association of Canada and the U.S. 123–140.Google Scholar
Boysson-Bardies, B. de, Sargart, L. & Durand, C. (1984). Discernible differences in the babbling of infants according to target language. Journal of Child Language ii. 1–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boysson-Bardies, B. de, Sagart, L., Halle, P. & Durand, C. (1986). Acoustic investigations of cross-linguistic variability in babbling. In Lindblom & Zetterström (1986). 113–126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (1985), Dynamic modeling of phonetic structure. In Fromkin (1985). 35–53.Google Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldsein, L. (1986). Towards an articulatory phonology. Phonology Yearbook 3. 219–252.Google Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (1987). Tiers in Articulatory Phonology, with some implications for casual speech. Haskins Laboratories Status Report on Speech Research SR-92. 1–30. To appear in Kingston & Beckman (in press).Google Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (1988). Some notes on syllable structure in articulatory phonology. Phonetica 45. 140–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (1989). ‘Targetless’ schwa: an articulatory analysis. Paper presented at the 2nd Conference on Laboratory Phonology, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Browman, C. P. & Goldstein, L. (in press). Gestural structures and phonological patterns. In Mattingly & Studdert-Kennedy (in press).Google Scholar
Browman, C. P., Goldstein, L., Kelso, J. A. S., Rubin, P. & Saltzman, E. (1984). Articulatory synthesis from underlying dynamics. JASA 75. S22–S23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Browman, C. P., Goldstein, L., Saltzman, E. & Smith, C.(1986). GEST: a computational model for speech production using dynamically defined articulatory gestures. JASA 80. S97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, G. (1977). Listening to spoken English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Campbell, L. (1974). Phonological features: problems and proposals. Lg 50. 52–65.Google Scholar
Catford, J. C. (1977). Fundamental problems in phonetics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. & Halle, M. (1968). The sound pattern of English. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Clements, G. N. (1985). The geometry of phonological features. Phonology Yearbook 2. 225–252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clements, G. N. & Keyser, S. J. (1983). CV phonology: a generative theory of the syllable. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ewen, C. J. (1982). The internal structure of complex segments. In van der Hulst, H. & Smith, N. (eds.) The structure of phonological representations. Part 2. Dordrecht: Foris. 27–67.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. & Farwell, C. B. (1975). Words and sounds in early language acquisition. Lg 51. 419–439.Google Scholar
Fowler, C. A. (1980). Coarticulation and theories of extrinsic timing. JPh 8. 113–133.Google Scholar
Fowler, C. A. (1981). A relationship between coarticulation and compensatory shortening. Phonetica 38. 35–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fowler, C. A. (1983). Converging sources of evidence on spoken and perceived rhythms of speech: cyclic production of vowels in sequences of monosyllable stress feet. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 112. 386–412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, C. A.Rubin, P., Remez, R. E. & Turvey, M. T. (1980). Implications for speech production of a general theory of action. In Butterworth, B. (ed.) Language production. New York: Academic Press. 373–420.Google Scholar
Fromkin, V. (ed.) (1985). Phonetic linguistics: essays in honor of Peter Ladefoged. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fry, D. B, (1966). The development of the phonological system in the normal and the deaf child. In Smith, F. & Miller, G. (eds.) The genesis of language. a psycholinguistic approach. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 187–206.Google Scholar
Fujimura, O. (1981 a). Temporal organization of articulatory movements as a multidimensional phrasal structure. Phonetica 38. 66–83.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fujimura, O. (1981 b). Elementary gestures and temporal organization: what does an articulatory constraint mean? In Myers, T., Layer, J. & Anderson, J. (eds.) The cognitive representation of speech. Amsterdam: Horth-Holland. 101–110.Google Scholar
Gimson, A. C. (1962). An introduction to the pronunciation of English. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Glass, L. & Mackey, M. C. (1988). From clocks to chaos. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, L. & Browman, C. P. (1986). Representation of voicing contrasts using articulatory gestures. JPh 14. 339–342.Google Scholar
Gregores, E. & Suárez, J. A. (1967). A description of colloquial Guaranm. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guy, G. R. (1980). Variation in the group and the individual: the case of final stop deletion. In Labov, W. (ed.) Locating language in time and space. New York: Academic Press. 1–36.Google Scholar
Haken, H., Kelso, J. A. S. & Bunz, H. (1985). A theoretical model of phase transitions in human hand movements. Biological Cybernetics 51. 347–356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Halle, M. (1982). On distinctive features and their articulatory implementation. NLLT 1. 91–105.Google Scholar
Halle, M. & Stevens, K. (1971). A note on laryngeal features. MIT Quarterly Progress Report 11. 198–213.Google Scholar
Hammond, M. (1988). On deriving the well-formedness condition. LI 19. 319–325.Google Scholar
Hardcastle, W. J. & Roach, P. J. (1979). An instrumental investigation of coarticulation in stop consonant sequences. In Hollien, P. & Hollien, H. (eds.) Current issues in the phonetic sciences. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 531–540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayes, B. (1986). Assimilation as spreading in Toba Batak. LI 17. 467–499.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R., Fant, C. G. M. & Halle, M. (1969). Preliminaries to speech analysis: the distinctive features and their correlates. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1985). Lehrbuch der Phonetik. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar
Keating, P. A. (1985). CV phonology, experimental phonetics, and coarticulation. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 62. 1–13.Google Scholar
Keating, P. A. (1988). Palatals as complex segments: X-ray evidence. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 69. 77–91.Google Scholar
Kelso, J. A. S. & Tuller, B. (1987). Intrinsic time in speech production: theory, methodology, and preliminary observations. In Keller, E. & Gopnik, M. (eds.) Motor and sensory processes of language. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 203–222.Google Scholar
Kelso, J. A. S., Vatikiotis-Bateson, E., Saltzman, E. L. & Kay, B. (1985). A qualitative dynamic analysis of reiterant speech production: phase portraits, kinematics, and dynamic modeling. JASA 77. 266–280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kent, R. D. (1983). The segmental organization of speech. In MacNeilage (1983). 57–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kent, R. D. & Murray, A. D. (1982). Acoustic features of infant vocalic utterances at 3, 6, and 9 months. JASA 72. 353–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kingston, J. & Beckman, M. E. (eds.) (in press). Papers in laboratory phonology I: between the grammar and the physics of speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, K. (1976). Die Instabilität wortfinaler Alveolarplosive im Deutschen: eine elektropalatographische Untersuchung. Phonetica 33. 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koopmans-van, Beinum F. J. & van der Stelt, J. M. (1986). Early stages in the development of speech movements. In Lindblom & Zetterström (1986). 37–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakow, R. A. (1989). The articulatory organization of syllables: a kinematic analysis of labial and velar gestures. PhD dissertation, Yale University.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1980). What are linguistic sounds made of? Lg 56. 485–502.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1982). A course in phonetics. 2nd edn. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1988 a). Hierarchical features of the International Phonetic Alphabet. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 70. 1–12.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1988 b). The many interfaces between phonetics and phonology. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 70. 13–23.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. & Halle, M. (1988). Some major features of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Lg 64. 577–582.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1986). Some of the sounds of the world's languages. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 64. 1–137.Google Scholar
Lass, R. (1984). Phonology: an introduction to basic concepts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liberman, A. M. & Mattingly, I. G. (1985). The motor theory of speech perception revised. Cognition 21. 1–36.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lieberman, P. (1984). The biology and evolution of language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lindau, M. (1978). Vowel features. Lg 54. 541–563.Google Scholar
Lindblom, B. (1986). Phonetic universals in vowel systems. In Ohala, J. J. & Jaeger, J. J. (eds.) Experimental phonology. Orlando, Fl.: Academic Press. 13–44.Google Scholar
Lindblom, B., MacNeilage, P. F.& Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1983). Self-organizing processes and the explanation of phonological universals. In Butterworth, B., Comrie, B. & Dahl, Ö. (eds.) Explanations of linguistic universals. The Hague: Mouton. 182–203.Google Scholar
Lindblom, B. & Zetterström, R. (eds.) (1986). Precursors of early speech. Basingstoke: MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linker, W. (1982). Articulatory and acoustic correlates of labial activity in vowels: a cross-linguistic study. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 56. 1–134.Google Scholar
Locke, J. L. (1983). Phonological acquisition and change. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Locke, J. L. (1986). The linguistic significance of babbling. In Lindbiom & Zetterström (1986). 143–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lombardi, L. (1987). On the representation of the aifricate. Ms, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Lynch, J. (1983). On the Kuman liquids. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia 14. 98–112.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J. J. (1988). Feature geometry and dependency: a review. Phonetica 45. 84–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, J. J. (1989). Linear ordering in phonological representation. LI 20. 71–99.Google Scholar
MacNeilage, P. F. (ed.) (1983). The production of speech. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddieson, I. (1987). Revision of the IPA: linguo-labials as a test case. Journal of the International Phonetic Association 17. 26–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maddieson, I. & Ladefoged, P. (1989). Multiply articulated segments and the feature hierarchy. UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics 72. 116–138.Google Scholar
Marshall, R. C., Gandour, J. & Windsor, J. (1988). Selective impairment of phonation: a case study. Brain and Language 35. 313–339.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mattingly, I. G. & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (eds.) (in press). Modularity and the motor theory of speech perception. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Eribaum.Google Scholar
Nittrouer, S., Studdert-Kennedy, M. & McGowan, R. S. (1989). The emergence of phonetic segments: evidence from the spectral structure of fricative-vowel syllables spoken by children and adults. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 32. 120–132.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nittrouer, S., Munhall, K., Kelso, J. A. S., Tuller, B. & Harris, K. S. (1988). Patterns of interarticulator phasing and their relation to linguistic structure. JASA 84. 1653–1661.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ohala, J. J. (1975). Phonetic explanations for nasal sound patterns. In Ferguson, C. A., Hyman, L. M. & Ohala, J. J. (eds.) Nasàlfest. Stanford: Stanford University. 289–316.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. J. (1981). The listener as a source of sound change. In Masek, C. S., Hendrick, R. A. & Miller, M. F. (eds.) Papers from the parassesion on language and behavior. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. 178–203.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. J. (1983). The origin of sound patterns in vocal tract constraints. In MacNeilage (1983). 189–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ohala, J. J. (1985). Around ‘flat’. In Fromkin (1985). 223–241.Google Scholar
Ohala, J. J. & Lorentz, J. (1977). The story of [w]: an exercise in the phonetic explanation for sound patterns. BLS 3. 577–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oiler, D. K. (1986). Metaphonology and infant vocalizations. In Lindblom & Zetterström (1986). 21–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oiler, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (1982). Similarity of babbling in Spanish- and English- learning babies. Journal of Child Language 9. 565–577.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oiler, D. K. & Eiiers, R. E. (1988). The role of audition in infant babbling. Child Development 59. 441–449.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostry, D. J. & Munhall, K. (1985). Control of rate and duration of speech movements. JASA 77. 640–648.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pagliuca, W. (1982). Prolegomena to a theory of articulatory evolution. PhD dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Pike, K. L. (1943). Phonetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plotkin, V. Y. (1976). Systems of ultimate units. Phonetica 33. 81–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Principles of the International Phonetic Association (1949, reprinted 1978). London: University College.Google Scholar
Recasens, D. (in preparation), The articulatory characteristics of alveolopalatal and palatal consonants. New Haven: Haskins Laboratories.Google Scholar
Rubin, P., Baer, T. & Mermelstein, P. (1981). An articulatory synthesizer for perceptual research. JASA 70. 321–328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sagey, E. C. (1986). The representation of features and relations in non-linear phonology. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Sagey, E. C. (1988). On the ill-formedness of crossing association lines. LI 19. 109–118.Google Scholar
Saltzman, E. (1986). Task dynamic coordination of the speech articulators: a preliminary model. In Heuer, H. & Fromm, C. (eds.) Generation and modulation of actionpatterns. New York: Springer. 129–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saltzman, E., Goldstein, L., Browman, C. P. & Rubin, P. E. (1988). Dynamics of gestural blending during speech production. Paper presented at 1st Annual International Neural Network Society (INNS), Boston.Google Scholar
Saltzman, E. & Kelso, J. A. S. (1987). Skilled actions: a task dynamic approach. Psychological Review 94. 84–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saltzman, E. & Munhall, K. (in press). A dynamical approach to gestural patterning in speech production. Ecological Psychology.Google Scholar
Saltzman, E., Rubin, P. E., Goldstein, L. & Browman, C. P. (1987). Task-dynamic modeling of interarticulator coordination. JASA 82. S15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schadeberg, T. C. (1982). Nasalization in UMbundu. Journal of African Languages and Linguistics 4. 109–132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmidt, R. C., Carello, C. & Turvey, M. T. (1987). Visual coupling of biological oscillators. PAW Review 2. 22–24.Google Scholar
Selkirk, E. (1988). A two-root theory of length. To appear in NELS 19.Google Scholar
Shockey, L. (1974). Phonetic and phonological properties of connected speech. Ohio State Working Papers in Linguistics 17. iv–143.Google Scholar
Steriade, D. (in press), Gestures and autosegments: comments on Browman and Goldstein's ‘Gestures in articulatory phonology’. In Kingston & Beckman (in press).Google Scholar
Stevens, K. N. (1972). The quantal nature of speech: evidence from articulatory– acoustic data. In David, E. E. & Denes, P. B. (eds.) Human communications: a unified view. New York: McGraw-Hill. 51–66.Google Scholar
Stevens, K. N. (1989). On the quantal nature of speech. JPh 17. 3–45.Google Scholar
Stevens, K. N., Keyser, S. J. & Kawasaki, H. (1986). Toward a phonetic and phonological theory of redundant features. In Perkell, J. S. & Klatt, D. H. (eds.) Invariance and variability in speech processes. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. 426–449.Google Scholar
Straight, H. S. (1976). The acquisition of Maya phonology: variation in Yucatec child language. New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1987). The phoneme as a perceptuomotor structure. In Allport, A., MacKay, D., Prinz, W. & Scheerer, E. (eds.) Language perception and production. London: Academic Press. 67–84.Google Scholar
Thelen, E. (1981). Rhythmical behavior in infancy: an ethological perspective. Developmental Psychology 17. 237–257.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, J. M. T. & Stewart, H. B. (1976). Nonlinear dynamics and chaos. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Thràinsson, H. (1978). On the phonology of Icelandic preaspiration. Nordic Journal of Linguistics I. 3–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vatikiotis-Bateson, E. (1988). Linguistic structure and articulatory dynamics. Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Vennemann, T. & Ladefoged, P. (1973). Phonetic features and phonological features. Lingua 32. 61–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vihman, M. M. (in press). Ontogeny of phonetic gestures: speech production. In Mattingly & Studdert-Kennedy (in press).Google Scholar
Vihman, M. M., Macken, M. A., Miller, R., Simmons, H. & Miller, J. (1985). From babbling to speech: a re-assessment of the continuity issue. Lg 61. 397–445.Google Scholar
Wood, S. (1982). X-ray and model studies of vowel articulation. Working Papers in Linguistics, Lund University 23.Google Scholar