Electromyographic and Acoustical Study of the Production of Certain Final Clusters

The possibility that speech may be perceived with reference to articulation prompted this preliminary study of muscle action during speech production. The question investigated was: what is the difference, if any, in the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of /f/ in utterance final position and /f/ embedded in final consonant clusters. The acoustic duration of /f/ friction, measured spectographically, was about twice as great in final position as in any other position. On the other hand, electromyograms were similar for all positions of /f/. The change in /f/ friction duration from final to prefinal position is therefore a contextual effect on acoustical properties of production alone. The motor gesture is more independent of context.