coartikuláció

Coarticuláció is a linguistic phenomenon in phonetics and phonology where the articulation of one speech sound influences the articulation of a neighboring speech sound. This means that the way we produce a sound is not isolated but is affected by the sounds that come before and after it. For instance, when you say the word "too," the /t/ sound is influenced by the following rounded vowel /u/. Your lips begin to round even as you are producing the /t/. Similarly, in the word "cat," the /æ/ vowel is nasalized because of the following nasal consonant /n/ in words like "can't."

This coarticulation is a natural and automatic process that happens unconsciously in fluent speech. It helps to make speech production more efficient and fluid. Instead of completing the articulation of one sound entirely before starting the next, the articulatory gestures overlap. There are two main types of coarticulation: anticipatory coarticulation, where a future sound influences a present sound, and carryover coarticulation, where a past sound influences a present sound. Both types contribute to the acoustic variability of speech sounds, making it challenging for machines to accurately recognize speech without sophisticated models that account for these effects. Understanding coarticulation is crucial in fields like speech synthesis, speech recognition, and speech therapy.