Articulatory phonology

Articulatory phonology is a linguistic theory originally proposed in 1986 by Catherine Browman of Haskins Laboratories and Louis Goldstein  of University of Southern California and Haskins. The theory identifies theoretical discrepancies between phonetics and phonology and aims to unify the two by treating them as low- and high-dimensional descriptions of a single system.

Unification can be achieved by incorporating into a single model the idea that the physical system (identified with phonetics) constrains the underlying abstract system (identified with phonology), making the units of control at the abstract planning level the same as those at the physical level.

The plan of an utterance is formatted as a gestural score, which provides the input to a physically based model of speech production – the task dynamic model of Elliot Saltzman. The gestural score graphs locations within the vocal tract where constriction can occur, indicating the planned or target degree of constriction. A computational model of speech production developed at Haskins Laboratories combines articulatory phonology, task dynamics, and the Haskins articulatory synthesis system developed by Philip Rubin and colleagues.