An acoustic investigation of the [ATR] feature effect on vowel-to-vowel coarticulation

We report quantitative measurements of coarticulation of the Advanced Tongue Root (ATR) feature in neighbouring and nonneighbouring vowels. Native speakers of Southern British English produced utterances; we matched pairs that were identical except for a contrast of [+ATR] vs. [–ATR] on one “transmitter” vowel. From recordings, we computed an acoustic representation at the centres of the vowels, measuring the difference in pronunciation associated with the contrast in [ATR] value. We observed a consistent coarticulatory effect two syllables after the transmitter when it was a low vowel (i.e. the /2 / vs. /a:/ and /6 / vs. /O: / pairs), but little or no effect when the transmitter