On the relationship between palate shape and articulatory behavior

In this study the acoustic and articulatory variabilities of speakers with different palate shapes were compared. Since the cross-sectional area of the vocal tract changes less for a slight change in tongue position if the palate is domeshaped than if it is flat, the acoustic variability should be greater for flat palates than for domeshaped ones. Consequently, it can be hypothesized that speakers with flat palates should reduce their articulatory variability in order to keep the acoustic output constant. This hypothesis was tested on 32 speakers recorded via electropalatography (EPG) and acoustics. The articulatory and acoustic variability of some of their vowels and /j/ was measured. Indeed, the results show that the speakers with flat palates reduce their variability in tongue height. There is no such trend in acoustic variability.