Domain-initial effects on C-to-V and V-to-V coarticulation in French: A corpus-based study
Résumé
This corpus-based study investigates whether and how coarticulation is modulated domain-initially in French.
Post-boundary IP-initial sequences were compared to the same sequence in word-medial position according to
the composition and structural link between the elements of that sequence. We examined 4 cases of coarticulation:
C-to-V coarticulation within syllable in #CV and #VC. sequences, across syllables in #V.C sequences, and
anticipatory V2-to-V1 coarticulation in #V1.C(C)V2 sequences. Coarticulation was determined by the amount of
spectral change in the formant of the vowel /a/ according to its context: an alveolar vs. uvular C context for Cto-
V coarticulation, and a high vs. low V context for V-to-V coarticulation. The analysis of 15,000 tokens of /a/
revealed that coarticulation can be modulated by prosody but this effect appeared to depend on the structural relationships
(the relation of the sounds relative to each other and to the syllable structure) between the elements in
the IP-initial sequence. A reduction of coarticulation of IP-initial sequence was only found for the two cases of
anticipatory C-to-V coarticulation (VC and V.C sequences). Interestingly, this reduction of coarticulation was larger
in the heterosyllabic V.C sequence. These results are discussed in terms of difference of the coupling between the
elements in the sequence and the proximity of the vowel to the boundary. They suggest that coupling relations
constrain prosodically-induced variation.
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