Standard theories about articulation predict an increase in coarticulation and reduction at increased speaking rates due to physiological constraints. We show that under near natural conditions, a professional speaker will produce fast spoken vowels that are only negligibly different from his normal rate spoken vowels. The correlation between vowel formant frequency and vowel duration is minimal in all parts of the vowel. We conclude that coarticuiation and reduction are not the result of physiological limitations of the speaker but are language governed features of speech.