Non-local phonological patterns can be difficult to analyze in the context of speech production models. Some patterns – e.g., vowel harmonies, nasal harmonies – can be readily analyzed to arise from temporal extension of articulatory gestures (i.e., spreading); such patterns can be viewed as articulatorily local. However, there are other patterns – e.g., nasal consonant harmony, laryngeal feature harmony – which cannot be analyzed as spreading; instead these patterns appear to enforce agreement between features of similar segments without affecting intervening (...) segments. Indeed, there are numerous typological differences between spreading harmonies and agreement harmonies, and this suggests that there is a mechanistic difference in the ways that spreading and agreement harmonies arise. This paper argues that in order to properly understand spreading and agreement patterns, the gestural framework of Articulatory Phonology must be enriched with respect to how targets of the vocal tract are controlled in planning and production. Specifically, it is proposed that production models should distinguish between excitatory and inhibitory articulatory gestures, and that gestures which are below a selection threshold can influence the state of the vocal tract, despite not being active. These ideas are motivated by several empirical phenomena, which include anticipatory posturing before production of a word form, and dissimilatory interactions in distractor-target response paradigms. Based on these ideas, a model is developed which provides two distinct mechanisms for the emergence of non-local phonological patterns. (shrink)

Temporal patterns in human movement, and in speech in particular, occur on multiple timescales. Regularities in such patterns have been observed between speech gestures, which are relatively quick movements of articulators (e.g., tongue fronting and lip protrusion), and also between rhythmic units (e.g., syllables and metrical feet), which occur more slowly. Previous work has shown that patterns in both domains can be usefully modeled with oscillatory dynamical systems. To investigate how rhythmic and gestural domains interact, an experiment was conducted in (...) which speakers performed a phrase repetition task, and gestural kinematics were recorded using electromagnetic articulometry. Variance in relative timing of gestural movements was correlated with variance in rhythmic timing, indicating that gestural and rhythmic systems interact in the process of planning and producing speech. A model of rhythmic and gestural planning oscillators with multifrequency coupling is presented, which can simulate the observed covariability between rhythmic and gestural timing. (shrink)

This book presents a new approach to studying the syntax of human language, one which emphasizes how we think about time. Tilsen argues that many current theories are unsatisfactory because those theories conceptualize syntactic patterns with spatially arranged structures of objects. These object-structures are atemporal and do not lend well to reasoning about time. The book develops an alternative conceptual model in which oscillatory systems of various types interact with each other through coupling forces, and in which the relative energies (...) of those systems are organized in particular ways. Tilsen emphasizes that the two primary mechanisms of the approach - oscillators and energy levels - require alternative ways of thinking about time. Furthermore, his theory leads to a new way of thinking about grammaticality and the recursive nature of language. The theory is applied to a variety of syntactic phenomena: word order, phrase structure, morphosyntax, constituency, case systems, ellipsis, anaphora, and islands. The book also presents a general program for the study of language in which the construction of linguistic theories is itself an object of theoretical analysis. (shrink)