Articulatory strategy as a source of variation in acoustic vowel dynamics

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Strycharczuk, Patrycja, Lo, Justin J. H., Kirkham, Sam
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Strycharczuk, Patrycja
Lo, Justin J. H.
Kirkham, Sam
author_facet Strycharczuk, Patrycja
Lo, Justin J. H.
Kirkham, Sam
contents Acoustic vowel dynamics have some speaker-identifying characteristics, which have been ascribed to individual properties of articulatory strategies: formant transitions have a particular shape because speakers move their articulators, using specific and practised movements. However, there is little existing evidence that different articulatory strategies systematically affect formant dynamics. The present study corroborates the link between the two. Ultrasound tongue imaging data from 36 speakers of Northern-Anglo English are used to identify distinct articulatory strategies for the production of palatal vowel /i/. Tongue shape in /i/ is found to be a significant predictor of formant dynamics in diphthongs with a palatal offglide. The observed relationships can be explained by the characteristics of articulatory movement conditioned by vocal tract shape. Greater articulatory displacement of tongue root and/or dorsum produces greater distortion from the mean tongue shape in palatal vowels, and it also requires higher articulatory velocities, resulting in relatively earlier and steeper formant transitions. The results contribute to the conceptual understanding of individuality in speech, by illuminating the regularising and individual aspects of articulatory compensation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_23416
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Articulatory strategy as a source of variation in acoustic vowel dynamics
Strycharczuk, Patrycja
Lo, Justin J. H.
Kirkham, Sam
Computation and Language
Sound
Acoustic vowel dynamics have some speaker-identifying characteristics, which have been ascribed to individual properties of articulatory strategies: formant transitions have a particular shape because speakers move their articulators, using specific and practised movements. However, there is little existing evidence that different articulatory strategies systematically affect formant dynamics. The present study corroborates the link between the two. Ultrasound tongue imaging data from 36 speakers of Northern-Anglo English are used to identify distinct articulatory strategies for the production of palatal vowel /i/. Tongue shape in /i/ is found to be a significant predictor of formant dynamics in diphthongs with a palatal offglide. The observed relationships can be explained by the characteristics of articulatory movement conditioned by vocal tract shape. Greater articulatory displacement of tongue root and/or dorsum produces greater distortion from the mean tongue shape in palatal vowels, and it also requires higher articulatory velocities, resulting in relatively earlier and steeper formant transitions. The results contribute to the conceptual understanding of individuality in speech, by illuminating the regularising and individual aspects of articulatory compensation.
title Articulatory strategy as a source of variation in acoustic vowel dynamics
topic Computation and Language
Sound
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23416