ABSTRACT
Consonant + vowel interactions are as complex as the interaction of tone and segments. Both are complicated and multifaceted. Depending on speakers, vowel context, and speech styles, among many variables, there lacks any isomorphism between phonetic signals and their presumed correlates, and it is thus difficult to cleanly demarcate a consonant from its vowel context. Despite these phonetic variabilities, listeners nevertheless perceive speech signals invariantly. Sussman et al. (1991) described this invariant perception as the non-invariance problem.
