Asymmetries in English Vowel Perception Mirror Compression Effects

Abstract

A series of vowel-identification experiments using gated consonant stimuli shows that English listeners are capable of recovering the vocalic context in which a consonant appears from information contained in the consonant alone. This is true for most consonants tested, including liquids, nasals, and stops in onset and coda position. Positional asymmetries in vowel sensitivity go in opposite directions for liquids (coda sensitivity > onset) and stops (onset > coda). Nasals pattern with liquids in terms of vowel sensitivity from consonant steady states alone, but pat- tern more closely with stops when portions outside the steady state are taken into account. It is argued that these asymmetries are related to patterns of cluster-driven vowel compression (also called ‘compensatory shortening') in speech production.

The phonetics and phonology of lenition: A Campidanese Sardinian case study

“…Even acoustic regions that appear to correspond straightforwardly to vowels contain perceptual information about flanking consonants (Raphael, 1972;Sussman & Shore, 1996). Conversely, acoustic regions associated with consonants contain perceptual information about adjacent vowels (Winitz, Scheib, & Reeds, 1972;Yeni-Komshian & Soli, 1981), and this information increases with consonantal intensity or sonority (Katz, 2013). The fact that lenited consonants have increased intensity and are more similar to surrounding vowels makes measuring duration especially difficult.…”

Syllable weight and natural duration in textsetting popular music in English

“… 16 Just as vowels are shorter after one consonant than after zero, the trend continues through increasingly complex onsets: vowels are shortened on average by 8.0% when going from one to two consonants in Buckeye, and by another 3.2% when going from two to three (cf. also Fowler 1983, van Santen 1992 and Katz 2010 for agreeing results). Nevertheless, these smaller degrees of compression are insufficient to counteract the perturbation of weight induced by each additional onset consonant.…”

“…The one exception to the trend, as apparent in figure 9, is the contrast between null and simple onsets, with the former patterning as heavier. This reversal can be attributed to the duration of the vowel: vowels are significantly longer after null onsets than after simple onsets in English (Fowler 1983; van Santen 1992; Clements & Hertz 1996; Katz 2010). For example, in words of the shape (C)V́C 0 VC 0 in the Buckeye corpus, the initial vowel is on average 21% longer after a null onset.…”

“… 6 The question of how syllables are rendered is also linguistically interesting (see e.g. Katz 2010: 127–33; Nwe et al . 2010; Hayes & Schuh 2019: 284–93).…”