A Dynamical Approach to Gestural Patterning in Speech Production

TLDR

Speech is traditionally viewed as a sequence of discrete, context‑independent units, yet empirical evidence shows continuous, context‑dependent articulatory interleaving. The article aims to reconcile the linguistic hypothesis of discrete sequencing with the empirical observation of continuous articulatory interleaving. The authors extend a task‑dynamic articulatory model by mapping gestural primitives to parameters in a two‑level dynamical system, defining intergestural activation coordinates and interarticulator articulator/tract variables, and modeling coproduction effects through blending dynamics and serial timing of overlapping gestures. The extended model accounts for coproduction effects, explains the serial timing of gesture onsets and offsets, and offers implications for phonological theory, supported by reviewed experimental data on speech and limb motor control.

Abstract

In this article, we attempt to reconcile the linguistic hypothesis that speech involves an underlying sequencing of abstract, discrete, context-independent units, with the empirical observation of continuous, context-dependent interleaving of articulatory movements. To this end, we first review a previously proposed task-dynamic model for the coordination and control of the speech articulators. We then describe an extension of this model in which invariant speech units (gestural primitives) are identified with context-independent sets of parameters in a dynamical system having two functionally distinct but interacting levels. The intergestural level is defined according to a set of activation coordinates; the interarticulator level is defined according to both model articulator and tractvariable coordinates. In the framework of this extended model, coproduction effects in speech are described in terms of the blending dynamics defined among a set of temporally overlapping active units; the relative timing of speech gestures is formulated in terms of the serial dynamics that shape the temporal patterning of onsets and offsets in unit activations. Implications of this approach for certain phonological issues are discussed, and a range of relevant experimental data on speech and limb motor control is reviewed.