rearticulation

Rearticulation is the renewed production of a speech gesture within an utterance, in which the articulators reconfigure and execute a secondary articulation of a target segment. It is a dynamic aspect of speech production rather than a discrete phoneme or phonological unit. Rearticulation can arise from coarticulation, where planning for upcoming sounds requires adjustments to the current constriction, or from motor timing constraints that yield a refined articulation within or between segments. It can also reflect repair mechanisms after a misarticulation or hesitations in fluent speech.

In connected speech, rearticulation often occurs during rapid speech or across word boundaries, producing subtle acoustic differences such as a longer constriction, a second minor adjustment, or a slightly altered release compared with the canonical production. It is studied in experimental phonetics and phonology through articulatory imaging (such as MRI, ultrasound, or electromagnetic analysis) and detailed acoustic analysis.

Rearticulation is related to broader concepts of coarticulation and speech motor control. It is not the same as deliberate phonological alternations or simple repetition; rather, it describes how speakers continually adjust and sometimes reperform articulatory gestures as part of natural speech dynamics. In clinical contexts, patterns of rearticulation may inform assessments of articulation accuracy and fluency.