Anticipatory labial coarticulation: Experimental, biological, and linguistic variables

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Abstract
The differences between 2 views of anticipatory labial coarticulation were resolved. One of these views contends that a [human] speaker begins labial movement toward a rounded vowel in direct relation to the amount of time available, while the other view posits an onset of movement that is temporally locked to the rounded vowel. Electromyographic signals were sampled from 4 muscles associated with labial movement while, simultaneously, movements of the upper lip in the anterior-posterior and vertical dimensions were recorded. Four native speakers of American English and 5 native speakers of Swedish served as subjects. Apparently, there are a number of purely biological and experimental variables which can intrude on research of this type and there are language-specific differences in the production of rounded vowels. Swedish and American English speakers apparently learn different motor-programming goals. This 2nd observation is discussed in terms of acoustic/perceptual needs of the speakers of a language.

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