Effects of syllable-initial voicing and speaking rate on the temporal characteristics of monosyllabic words

Abstract

Two speech production experiments tested the validity of the traditional method of creating voice-onset-time (VOT) continua for perceptual studies in which the systematic increase in VOT across the continuum is accompanied by a concomitant decrease in the duration of the following vowel. In experiment 1, segmental durations were measured for matched monosyllabic words beginning with either a voiced stop (e.g., big, duck, gap) or a voiceless stop (e.g., pig, tuck, cap). Results from four talkers showed that the change from voiced to voiceless stop produced not only an increase in VOT, but also a decrease in vowel duration. However, the decrease in vowel duration was consistently less than the increase in VOT. In experiment 2, results from four new talkers replicated these findings at two rates of speech, as well as highlighted the contrasting temporal effects on vowel duration of an increase in VOT due to a change in syllable-initial voicing versus a change in speaking rate. It was concluded that the traditional method of creating VOT continua for perceptual experiments, although not perfect, approximates natural speech by capturing the basic trade-off between VOT and vowel duration in syllable-initial voiced versus voiceless stop consonants.

Contextual influences on the internal structure of phonetic categories: A distinction between lexical status and speaking rate

“…Perceptually, the series ranged from a clear /bi/ at short VOT values, through a clear /pi/ at intermediate VOT values, to a breathy exaggerated version of /pi/ (*/pi/) at long VOT values. As a result of this procedure, syllable duration (247 msec) was constant across all the tokens in the series (see Allen & Miller, 1999).…”

The VOT Category Boundary in Word-Initial Stops: Counter-Evidence Against Rate Normalization in English Spontaneous Speech

“…These authors suggest that English-speaking listeners use the duration of the vowel following a stop onset as an independent cue to the stop's voicing specification, not as a cue to articulation rate as generally held. All else being equal, vowels following a voiced stop onset (measured from the onset of voicing) are longer than vowels following a voiceless stop onset in English (Allen & Miller, 1999). This vowel duration difference can serve as a secondary cue to the preceding stop's voicing specification.…”

Rate effects on Southern American English VOT

“…Rate Effects. Previous research into the effect of speaking rate on VOT durations (e.g., Miller, Green, & Reeves 1986, Pind 1995, Allen & Miller 1999 show that in word-initial stop contrasts, VOT increases in the phonologically specified category as speaking rate decreases, while the unspecified category exhibits little change. Thus, in languages which contrast prevoiced stops with short-lag stops, such as Spanish (Table 3), prevoicing increases in slower speech and decreases in faster speech while short-lag VOT shows little difference.…”

“…Stop Type Fast Slow Difference Spanish (Magloire & Greene 1999) Prevoiced -45.8 -69.2 23.4 French (Kessinger & Blumstein 1997) Prevoiced -82.5 -110 27.5 English (Magloire & Greene 1999) Long-lag 31.5 58.4 26.9 English (Kessinger & Blumstein 1997) Long-lag 79 107.5 28.5 English (Allen & Miller 1999) Long Table 8. Reported mean VOT as a function of speaking rate from multiple studies compared to the present study.…”

“…Besides differences in VOT due to language-specific categorical boundaries, a variety of changing articulatory and phonological factors affect VOT production and perception in specific contexts (e.g., Liberman, Cooper, Shankweiler, & Studdert-Kennedy 1967, Miller, Green, & Reeves 1986, Allen & Miller 1999. Speech rate is an articulatory factor that has been shown to affect the range of VOT values of entire categories (Kessinger & Blumstein 1996, Beckman, Helgason, McMurray, & Ringen 2011.…”