Syllable structure, syllable duration and final lengthening in parkinsonian French speech

The present study investigates the duration of syllables with relation to position within phrases and the pattern of segment omissions within syllables in a text read by 12 French PD patients and 12 French control subjects. Three main tendencies emerged. The first was similar duration of syllables in PD and control speech, which may result from a combination of articulatory undershoot and slowness of speech gestures. The second was a normal incidence of segment omissions in both groups: these were mostly coda consonants and/or the second member of C1C2 sequences. The third was a normal production and a strong correlation of final lengthening with the syntactic structure of sentences in both PD speech and control speech. Having analysed the results the study evaluates their implication with respect to the role of basal ganglia in the production of speech.