Preceding Vowel Duration as a Cue to the Perception of the Voicing Characteristic of Word-Final Consonants in American English

Abstract

A number of studies in the literature have stated that the duration of a vowel is a significant cue to the voicing characteristic of the consonant that follows it. The present study investigated the effect of varying preceding vowel duration upon the perception of word-final stops, fricatives, and clusters in synthetic speech. A variety of minimal CVC (C) pairs was synthesized and the vowel of each was varied over a range of values derived from durations found in real-speech samples. It was found that, regardless of the cues for voicing or voicelessness used in the synthesis of the final consonant or cluster, listeners perceived the final segments as voiceless when they were preceded by vowels of short duration and as voiced when they were preceded by vowels of long duration. Discrimination tests revealed that when the voicing characteristic is cued by vowel duration, perception is continuous rather than categorical.

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