ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the background to the theory of articulatory phonology and considers some of the arguments for assuming that phonology is organized around concrete phonetic events. Articulatory phonology addresses the problem of phonological organization from a phonetic perspective, and proposes the notion that "phonology is a set of relations among physically real events". A crucial difference between articulatory phonology and feature-based systems is the fact that gestures have internal duration. In articulatory phonology, gestures can vary according to the degree to which they overlap, offering a gradient approach. Articulatory phonology aims to capture the syntagmatic aspect of speech. Browman and Goldstein make explicit the point that articulatory phonology is intended to be able to explain both the categorical and the gradient properties of speech. In articulatory phonology the spreading of nasality can be expressed effectively and succinctly by exploiting the potential for gestures to overlap.
