PART-WORD REPETITIONS BY PERSONS WHO STUTTER - FRAGMENT TYPES AND THEIR ARTICULATORY PROCESSES

One of the core features of developmental stuttering is part-word repe tition followed by fluent production (resolution) of the target word. The purpose of the study is to compare the spectro-temporal dimensions of fragments with the spectro-temporal dimensions of the resolution t o define fragment types and develop articulatory interpretation of ter mination-restart cycles. From the acoustic recordings of six adult mal es who stutter, 142 stuttering events on words beginning with stops we re;isolated, excerpted, and digitized. The stuttering events occurred during either spontaneous speech or reading. The consecutive articulat ory phases of fragments were classified and compared with the correspo nding phases in resolutions. We found that (a) there are two basic typ es of fragments-those with vowels and those without, (b) the type of f ragment produced is strongly influenced by the voicing status of the s top, (c) the fragments without vowels tend to have longer stop closure duration than the stops in the resolutions, (d) there are two subtype s in fragments with vowels-those with vowels shorter than and those wi th vowels longer than the vowels in the resolutions, (e) the shorter v owels differ spectre-temporally from the vowels in resolutions, and (f ) the longer vowels differ temporally from the vowels in the resolutio ns. We discuss the articulatory implications of the acoustic data for each fragment type in the context of speech as an act designed to achi eve contextually conditioned acoustic goals.