Speech rate and articulatory reduction in Italian alveolar and velar nasal + stop clusters

The paper is an electropalatographic study of temporal and linguopalatal contact variations as a function of changes in speech rate during the production of Italian clusters composed of a nasal followed by an alveolar or a velar stop, where regressive place assimilation is supposed to occur. Whether place assimilation in nasal + velar stop clusters should be considered a gradient or a categorical process is also investigated. As for rate effects, results show that the consonants under investigation do not always exhibit less linguopalatal contact in fast speech than in slow speech. Consonant duration appears to be more rate sensitive than articulation, and careful articulation may occur at fast speech rates. A higher degree of linguopalatal contact variability for velar than for alveolar consonants makes it difficult to ascertain rate effects. The articulatory behaviour of the two nasal clusters is also affected by the presence vs. absence of a word boundary between the two consonants in the cluster.