Although coarticulatory variation is largely systematic, and serves as useful information for listeners, such variation is nonetheless linked to sound change. This article explores the articulatory and perceptual interactions between a coarticulatory source and its effects, and how these interactions likely contribute to change. The focus is on…

Argues that there is phonological gemination in English based on distribution of vowel qualities in medial and final syllables. The analysis, cast in terms of optimality theory, has implications in several domains: (1) ambisyllabicity is not the right way to capture aspiration and flapping; (2) languages in which stress depends on vowel quality…

This paper presents an inventory of the features that are necessary to describe vowel systems in the languages of the world. The relationship between the features and then articulatory and acoustic correlates is explored. (Author/NCR)