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Abstract:
This paper studies the articulatory characteristics of reduced
/t/ and /d/ in American English between vowels and in various
consonant clusters. It is predicted that the articulatory
requirements of the different consonants that can appear in front
of /t/ and /d/ will have an affect on whether they are reduced
-flapped- or not. A set of experiments were performed using the
Carstens EMA system to obtain tongue-tip movement data. The
results, organized in a set of planned comparisons show that,
indeed, the place of articulation of /t/ and /d/ varies, not only
as a function of whether it appears in a stressed or unstressed
position, but also depending on the consonant that precedes it in
a cluster. While /l/ and /s/ seem to preclude the occurrence of
flapping,, the articulation of /r/ is sufficiently variable to
allow it. The results presented here also show that the point of
articulation of /t/ and /d/ in clusters varies depending on the
consonant that precedes. The point of articulation of those
consonants is, in turn, also affected, which is taken as evidence
of tongue-tip gestural blending.
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