Relation between voice-onset time and vowel duration

Abstract

As part of an investigation of the temporal implementation rules of English, measurements were made of voice-onset time for initial English stops and the duration of the following voiced vowel in monosyllabic words for New York City speakers. It was found that the VOT of a word-initial consonant was longer before a voiceless final cluster than before a single nasal, and longer before tense vowels than lax vowels. The vowels were also longer in environments where VOT was longer, but VOT did not maintain a constant ratio with the vowel duration, even for a single place of articulation. VOT was changed by a smaller proportion than the following voiced vowel in both cases. VOT changes associated with the vowel were consistent across place of articulation of the stop. In the final experiment, when vowel tensity and final consonant effects were combined, it was found that the proportion of vowel duration change that carried over to the preceding VOT is different for the two phonetic changes. These results imply that temporal implementation rules simultaneously influence several acoustic intervals including both VOT and the "inherent" interval corresponding to a segment, either by independent control of the relevant articulatory variables or by some unknown common mechanism.

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