ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1995
ISCA Archive Eurospeech 1995

Prevocalic consonant duration in Swedish: effects of vowel quality and postvocalic place of articulation

Peter E. Czigler, Dawn M. Behne

This research examines the effects of vowel quality (high vs. low) and postvocalic place of articulation (labial, dental, velar) on the relative timing of syllable-internal components, concentrating on the duration of prevocalic consonants. Results indicate that the duration of a prevocalic consonant tends to approximate compensate for the inherent duration of a following vowel. And although postvocalic place of articulation was not found to affect the duration of a prevocalic consonant in a CVC syllable, a relatively an inverse relationship was observed between the duration of a vowel and postvocalic consonant. These effects lead to durational patterns for the rhyme which result in a relatively stable overall syllable duration.