Is phoneme inventory a good predictor for vocal tract use in casual speech?
Résumé
The aim of this study is to provide a general overview of the expected articulatory positions in French according to phoneme inventory, phonemes in words and phonemes in conversational speech. Three datasets were analyzed and relative frequencies of articulators and articulatory dimensions are given. The results show that tongue body is used most frequently. Palatal and velar dimensions are the most frequent constriction locations. No strong differences are observed between the three datasets. This suggests that the use of articulators and dimensions is correctly balanced within words and more especially within high frequent words in speech.