Duration of syllable nuclei in Spanish

Alexander C. Aldrich; Miquel Simonet

doi:10.1515/shll-2019-2012

Article

Duration of syllable nuclei in Spanish

Alexander C. Aldrich and Miquel Simonet

Published/Copyright: September 12, 2019

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From the journal Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics Volume 12 Issue 2

Abstract

In many languages, vowel duration is modulated by syllable structure — a phenomenon known as vowel compression — so that vowels are shorter in syllables with more segments than in syllables with fewer segments. Most instrumental evidence to date has reported an effect, in many languages, of the presence (and complexity) of a coda, and some studies have also documented effects of the presence (and complexity) of an onset. However, no prior studies on Spanish vowel duration have captured any effects of syllable structure. Using data from nine speakers and controlled speech materials, the present study addresses the following research question: Does syllable structure modulate vowel duration? The findings are as follows: (a) Relative to simplex onsets (those with a singleton consonant), complex onsets (those with a consonant cluster) trigger vowel compression; and (b) neither simplex nor complex codas consistently drive vowel compression — i.e. codas do not systematically affect vowel duration. Together with the facts for other languages, our findings support a view according to which syllable structure — in particular, onset complexity — modulates acoustic vowel duration. The study discusses the theoretical implications of this finding, which are argued to be in line with some of the principles of the Articulatory Phonology framework or, alternatively, suggest that codas should not be considered part of the articulatory syllable.

Keywords: syllable; vowel duration; vowel compression; coarticulation; Articulatory Phonology; Spanish

Appendix

Figure 5:

Normalized vowel duration of all /i/ tokens in the dataset plotted as a function of vowel syllable structure (CCV, CV, CVC, CVCC) and individual speaker, and pooled over consonant type and repetition.

Figure 6:

Normalized vowel duration of all /a/ tokens in the dataset plotted as a function of vowel syllable structure (CCV, CV, CVC, CVCC) and individual speaker, and pooled over consonant type and repetition.

Figure 7:

Normalized syllable duration of all tokens in the dataset plotted as a function of vowel syllable structure (CCV, CV, CVC, CVCC) and individual speaker, and pooled over vowel, consonant type, and repetition.

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Published Online: 2019-09-12

Published in Print: 2019-09-25

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/shll-2019-2012

Keywords for this article

syllable; vowel duration; vowel compression; coarticulation; Articulatory Phonology; Spanish