Cinefluorographic Study of Speaking Rate

This study compares the production, at two speaking rates, of 36 consonant vowel‐consonant sequences formed by every possible combination of initial and final consonants /b/, /d/, and /g/, and the syllable nuclei /i/, /u/, /ae/, and /ɔ/. Cinefluorograms and sonograms were obtained while one subject spoke the inventory under two conditions. (1) Citation form: The subject read a randomized list of CVC utterances at a normal rate. (2) Fast rate: The subject read the utterances as quickly as was practicable, in subsets of three, embedded in the carried phrase; /se∂ CVC∂se∂ CVC∂se∂ CVC∂se/. At the faster rate, the duration of the CVC components was approximately 40% of that of the citation forms. Comparisons were made between: (1) amounts of coarticulation of adjacent phoneme representations at the two speaking rates; (2) patterns and speeds of articulator movement at the two rates; (3) responses of different articulators to the increase in rate. From these results, an attempt was made to indicate some properti...