An articulatory basis for the Labial-to-Coronal effect: /pata/ seems a more stable articulatory pattern than /tapa/

Amélie Rochet-Capellan (1) , Jean-Luc Schwartz (2)

1 GIPSA-lab - Grenoble Images Parole Signal Automatique
2 GIPSA-PMD - GIPSA - Parole, Multimodalité, Développement

This paper investigates the coordination between the jaw, the tongue tip and the lower lip during repetition with rate increase of Labial-to-Coronal (LaCo) Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Vowel disyllables (e.g./pata/) and Coronal-to-Labial (CoLa) ones (e.g. /tapa/) by French speakers. For the two types of disyllables: (1) the speeding process induces a shift from two jaw cycles per disyllable to a single cycle; (2) this shift modifies the coordination between the jaw and the constrictors and (3) comes with a progression towards either a LaCo attractor (e.g. (/pata/ or /tapa/)->/patá/->/ptá/) or a CoLa one (e.g. (/pata/ or /tapa/->/tapá/->/tpá/). Yet, (4) the LaCo attractor is clearly favored regardless of the initial sequencing. These results are interpreted as evidence that a LaCo CVCV disyllable could be a more stable coordinative pattern for the lip-tongue-jaw motor system than a CoLa one. They are discussed in relation with the so-called LC effect that is the preference for LaCo associations rather than CoLa ones in CV.CV disyllables in both world languages and infants' first words.

Domains: Linguistics; Psychology

Amélie Rochet-Capellan, Jean-Luc Schwartz. An articulatory basis for the Labial-to-Coronal effect: /pata/ seems a more stable articulatory pattern than /tapa/. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2007, 121 (6), pp.3740-3754. ⟨10.1121/1.2734497⟩. ⟨hal-00157938⟩