On identifying syllable boundaries.

The interposition of a constant between vowels has been shown to affect systematically the formant frequencies of those vowels. The nature of these effects appears to depend on the extent to which the vowels and consonants share the tongue and lips as articulators. Traditional articulatory descriptions suggest two alternatives concerning the status of [h] and of [?] as consonants. On the one hand, since they are classified as consonants, we would expect them to produce the same coarticulatory effects as other fricatives and stops. On the other hand, since they are described as nonlingual/labial in their articulation, we would expect them to produce minimal coarticulatory effects. Indeed, results of some recent studies of speech production suggest that neither [h] nor [?] interrupts V-to-V articulations in the way that other consonants do (Harris and Bell-Berti, 1982). The present study employed spectrographic analysis of VV, VhV, V?V, and VCV sequences. Results revealed that there was minimal coarticulation between [h] or [?] and the surrounding vowels. Indeed, the formant structure of the vowels in VhV and V?V sequences were more similar to those of VV sequences than to those of other VCV sequences. Since consonants are often portrayed as the units that delimit syllables, these results raise the question of functional homogeneity within the class of consonants. [Research supported by NINCDS.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]