Formant trajectories in the realization of 3 Malayalam rhotics

Malayalam has a typologically rare set of three rhotic consonants—an alveolar trill, an alveolar tap, and a retroflex/postalveolar approximant. The first one is described as velarized, while the other two are somewhat palatalized. Previous acoustic work by Punnoose et al. [Phonetica 70, 274-297 (2013)] has established that the contrast can be differentiated by formant values around the constriction, as well as at the midpoint of adjacent vowels. Less clear, however, is the temporal extent of these formant differences and their overall dynamics. In this study, we analyze three rhotics produced by 10 male Malayalam speakers. Measurements of F1-F4 were taken at 10 points throughout the VCV interval and subjected to a series of Smoothing Spline ANOVAs. The results revealed differences in F2 (tap, approximant > trill) and F3 (tap, trill > approximant) among the rhotics extended through most of the preceding and following vowel duration, while differences in F1 (trill > tap, approximant) were less extensive. Wh...