Phonological and phonetic coarticulation


Phonological aspects of coarticulation (allophonic variation) are accounted for by means of feature sharing.

Both vowels and consonants have vocalic place features. Vowels and glides are fully specified for voc features, but:

Voc features which are unspecified in the lexicon, receive a value through feature spreading:



Templates:
In the exponency rules different values may be used for various synthesis parameters, depending on the voc features associated with a node. Thus, very subtle differences in phonetic implementation can be accounted for.

The following examples illustrate allophonic variants of /s/ in onset, with a "clear" or "dark" spectrum, depending on whether /s/ coarticulates with the vowel or with the glide:


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Arthur Dirksen / adirksen@prl.philips.nl / January 1995