| Popis: |
This study examined interarticulator programming of lip and tongue movements in the production of single and geminate consonants in Japanese and Italian. One issue addressed is whether the traditional description of Japanese as mora-timed and Italian as syllable-timed is associated with differences in interarticulator programming at the segmental level. Native speakers of Japanese and Italian served as subjects. The linguistic material consisted of Italian and Japanese words forming minimal pairs, with a sequence of vowel-bilabial nasal-vowel, where the duration of the consonant was either long or short. Recordings were made of lip and tongue movements using a magnetometer system. The results show no evidence of any stable relative timing differences between Japanese and Italian. These findings are also very similar to the results of a study of American English. Thus, rhythm class does not appear to reliably influence the timing of lip and tongue movements. |
