Phonetic orthodoxy treats the acoustic realization of a CVn, syllable (N.B. V = vowel or glide) as the concatenation of consecutive transitions from one element to the following one in the syllable. This study proposes an alternative view of the acoustic structure of this type of syllable, based on LPC trackings ofF2 in sets of selected Chinese and English CVnsyllables. The basic hypothesis is that the underlyingF2 transitions between any two phonologically adjacent elements in the same syllable (e.g., the C → V1, V1→ V2,…) all originate at the same temporal position—the syllable initiation. Each transition has a specified rate. The acoustic realization will be a programmed “truncation” process; that is, the phonologically preceding transition truncates the phonologically following transition (e.g., the C → V1transition truncates the V1→ V2transition; the truncated V1→ V2in turn truncates the V2→ V3transition). This model provides elegant accounts and quantitative predictions of the undershooting and overshooting phenomena in acoustic target realization. [Work supported by NSF.]