Production, Perception and Phontactic Patterns presents the first experimental study of articulatory dynamics of Russian and of secondary articulents in general, with a special focus on the nature of positional markedness scales, one of the key concepts in the current phonological theory (Optimality Theory). Through a series of experiments the author questions the traditional assumption that positional markedness scales are directly encoded in Universal Grammar and provides an alternative account based on gestural recoverability. This study combines a sophisticated and in-depth analysis of language-particular phonetic detail with wide cross-linguistic generalisations and contributes to the increasingly influential body of research that investigates phonetic factors in the search for explanations of phonological universals.