Some experiments on anticipatory coarticulation

EMG data from studies of lip rounding and jaw lowering activity reveal that, for a given speaking rate and stress pattern, the onset of EMG activity associated with these gestures occurs at a time before vowel onset which is unaffected by the acoustic duration or the number of consonants in the preceding string. The apparent contradiction between these conclusions and those of previous studies of anticipatory coarticulation may arise at least in part from neglect of the effects of clustering on consonant duration. [Supported by NINCDS grants to the Haskins Laboratories.]