Volume 53, Issue 1-2

This paper assesses the generalizability and scope of the three main models of vowel duration: the incompressibility, multiplicative, and additive models. Combinations of vowel tensity with speaking rate, postvocalic consonantal voicing with rate, and tensity with voicing were studied in a database consisting of vowels in a CVC context in sentence frames. Combinations of four pairs of long and short vowels in four different postvocalic consonantal conditions were spoken by 7 speakers of American English across a wide variation in rate. Acoustic analysis of vowel durations revealed only partial support for each of the three models, as none of them adequately captured the combined influences of these three factors. Further, there were observed instances of combinations of effects that were not predicted by any of the models, even instances that were the exact opposite of predictions of the models. A general approach of representing and studying duration behavior is suggested by using simple regression analysis and making slope comparisons of the effects of various factors. This approach provides a framework for describing all of the outcomes in the study, representing all of the three existing models of duration and accounting for outcomes not predicted by any of the models. Within this approach, attaching special importance to interpretations of incompressibility, constant ratios and facilitation is shown to be unnecessary.

Le present article fait la synthèse d’une recherche ayant porté sur l’analyse acoustique de la durée des semi-consonnes et de leur voyelle correspondante en français actuel du Québec. Trois classes de sons ont été considérées: [u] et [y], [w] et [u], puis [j]-[jj] et [i]-[ij]-[ji]-[ijι]. Les formes soumises à l’analyse proviennent d’enregistrements effectués auprès de jeunes étudiants d’université. Seuls les segments ayant fait l’objet d’une unanimité perceptive de la part des transcripteurs ont été examinés. La durée totale et la durée de chacune des phases (attaque, tenue, transition) de chaque son ont été étudiées. Tout en reconnaissant que plusieurs autres paramètres peuvent aussi intervenir, nous montrons que la durée est un facteur essentiel dans la différenciation entre les semi-consonnes et la voyelle correspondante, en français. En effet, non seulement la durée totale des segments est un facteur indispensable dans cette différenciation, mais la proportion qu’occupe chaque phase par rapport à la durée totale des segments l’est également.

Two experiments were run to investigate language-specific and universal acoustic-perceptual characteristics of the /i/–/e/ and /u/–/o/ contrasts in two languages that differ widely in the sizes of their vowel inventories, namely, English and Spanish. In order to investigate the relationship between production and perception of these two vowel pairs, the first experiment compared the acoustic and perceptual characteristics of the /i/–/e/ and /u/–/o/ contrasts within each of the two languages. In order to investigate the responses of listeners to non-native stimuli, the second experiment presented native listeners of English and Spanish with synthetic /i/–/e/ and /u/–/o/ stimuli that were modeled after natural vowels as spoken by speakers of the other language. The results indicated a close production-perception link, as well as a degree of flexibility of the perceptual vowel space in response to stimuli that are structured around non-native vowel category locations. These results suggest that listeners perceive vowel stimuli with reference to a specific phonemic vowel system, and, if necessary, will adjust their perceptual vowel system to match the stimuli. Additionally, a comparison of the absolute locations of the /i/–/e/ and /u/–/o/ perceptual boundaries across the two languages indicated the presence of universally preferred, inventory-independent boundary locations.

This study examines the acquisition of the glottal and supra-glottal timing patterns of English initial stops by French speakers. French speakers have greater difficulty reducing the duration of glottal pulsing for English /bdg/ than producing long-lag voice onset time (VOT) and the concurrent reduction in closure duration for /ptk/. This is ascribed to the greater articulatory complexity of English /bdg/ for French speakers, the lower degree of perceptual salience of differences in glottal pulsing, compared to differences in VOT, the existence in English of a competing pattern of more fully voiced /bdg/, and the existence in French of aspirated contextual variants of the lingual stops before high vowels. The latter also explains why long-lag VOT is more difficult to acquire for the labial than for the lingual stops. Acquisition of English-like VOT appears to proceed from (1) positive transfer from French of long voicing lag for lingual stops in high vowel contexts, to (2) distributional extension to nonhigh vowel contexts and to the labial stop, and to (3) gradual stretching of the lag to better approximate the English norm. The acquisition of English-like voicing appears to proceed in a similar fashion.