Timing of tongue body movements in V1-C-V2 sequences with respect to segment boundaries in German.

Understanding and modeling the timing of speech gestures are central to theories of speech motor control and to applications, such as articulatory speech synthesis. In this study, realizations of Vowel1-Consonant-Vowel2 (V1-C-V2) sequences were recorded with electromagnetic articulography to analyze the onset and offset times of tongue body movements between the vowels V1 and V2 relative to the acoustic interval of the consonant C. For this, the consonants /ʔ,m,f,p,pf/, which do not require specific tongue movements, and the vowels /a,i,u/ were considered. The relative onset time of the V1-V2 tongue movement was affected mainly by the V1 and C durations as well as by the main movement direction. The relative offset time was affected mainly by the C duration and the movement range. The derived rules for the temporal coordination of vowel and consonant gestures could help to generate more realistic articulator trajectories for articulatory speech synthesis.