ABSTRACT
Recent studies using advanced instrumental techniques have revealed characteristics of articulatory time courses that escape traditional accounts based on concatenated and smoothed (coarticulated phonetic (segmental) units. A partial model has been proposed which assumes: (1) relatively invariant articulatory movement patterns of the crucial (place-related) articulator (icebergs) for the initial or final part of a syllable based in part on the demisyllabic specifications of constituent distinctive features; (2) loose timing relations between such events of different articulators; (3) the possible involvement of new temporal organization principles such as dissimilation and repulsion as well as smoothing between consecutive gestures by the same articulator; and (4) strong prosodic effects on variable parts between icebergs (Fujimura, 1981b).
