Distribution of acoustic cues for stop consonant place of articulation in VCV syllables

Most theoretical accounts of the identification of stop consonant place of articulation have focused on how bursts and formant transitions conspire to signal place in CV syllables. In the present series of experiments we have examined the identification of place in VCV syllables and have found that not only do the burst and opening transitions affect the judgement of place, but so also do the closing transitions and the duration of the closure interval. This outcome is consistent with the outcomes of many other experiments in showing that there are multiple acoustic events which bear on the identification of a given phone and that those acoustic events are distributed over time. Theoretical accounts of place identification based on data of this kind may prove more viable than theories based on data from the identification of place in the absolute, syllable-initial position.