Preceding Vowel Duration as a Cue to the Voicing of Word-final Consonants

• Main Authors: Wu-hong Hsieh, 謝武宏
• Other Authors: Feng-lan Kuo
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 1999
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/75593889895338698435

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 87 === Lots of previous studies have suggested that preceding vowel duration can be used as a cue to the voicing of word-final stops or fricatives (Chen, 1970; Soli, 1982; Chang, 1993, 1995a). However, most studies put their emphasis on word-final stops while some studies lay their focus on fricatives only. The consonants that can occur word-finally may be of various manners of articulation such as stops, fricatives, affricates, and nasals. Besides, in English phonetic forms, there are open syllables. That is, the coda position of the syllable may be empty. However, studies have rarely been conducted to compare the vowel duration of closed syllables with that of open syllables. In addition, since previous studies include only words in isolation, minimal pair words in this study are also put into sentences to see the possible environmental effect of word-final consonants on preceding vowel duration. Finally, the intrinsic duration of various vowel types is also investigated to attain a better understanding of its variations. The results show that syllable types, word-final consonants and intrinsic vowel types all together account for the vowel duration variations found in English.