Abstract
This study reports an investigation of the well-known context-dependent variation in English /r/ using a biomechanical tongue-jaw-hyoid model. The simulation results show that preferred /r/ variants require less volume displacement, relative strain, and relative muscle stress than variants that are not preferred. This study also uncovers a previously unknown mechanism in tongue biomechanics for /r/ production: Torque in the sagittal plane about the mental spine. This torque enables raising of the tongue anterior for retroflexed [ɻ] by activation of hyoglossus and relaxation of anterior genioglossus. The results provide a deeper understanding of the articulatory factors that govern contextual phonetic variation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | EL355-EL360 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Journal of the Acoustical Society of America |
| Volume | 131 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 |
Open Access - Access Right Statement
Copyright (2012) Acoustical Society of America. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the Acoustical Society of America. The following article appeared in The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 131(5), EL355-360, (2012) and may be found at http://link.aip.org/link/?JAS/131/EL355/1Keywords
- acoustics
- biomechanics
- human physiology
- muscle
- phonetics
- speech processing
- tongue