Kenneth J. de Jong
Dept. of Linguist., Indiana Univ., 322 Memorial Hall, Bloomington, IN 47405
This paper presents the results of a rate scaling speech production experiment which seeks to replicate & examine in greater detail the results of a set of experiments reported in Stetson (1951). Stetson observed, based on a set of pioneering articulatory experiments, that coda consonants resyllabify as onset consonants in syllables repeated at fast speech rates. In the current experiment, speakers produced repetitions of simple CV & VC syllables in time to a metronome pacer which systematically changed in period. Data indicate that, whereas durational patterns for CV & VC syllables are very different at slow rates, the patterns tend to converge at fast rates. However, closer examination of fast rate tokens reveals that differences between CV & VC tokens persist at fast rates, even though such tokens are generally heard as CV tokens. These results are discussed with respect to the nature of CV & VC organization & the effect of the rate-changing task.