Ultrasound Study of Gestural Timing in Mandarin Vowel-Nasal Production

The present study uses ultrasound in combination with acoustic analysis to examine how a tongue gesture is timed in relation to acoustic syllable duration in Mandarin vowel-nasal production. The results show that gestural timing is relevant to both tongue and syllable positions; for example, anterior gestures such as the tongue tip rising tend to occur closer to syllable peripheries than open ones such as the tongue dorsum lowering, and toward which periphery they occur depends on which syllable position they hold. While this timing pattern can be explained by a biomechanically based model of gestural organization, others appear to be perceptually linked.