Integrated Cues of Voicing and Vowel Length in German: A Production Study

This paper examines influences of phonological representations upon the temporal relations in the production of word-medial VC-sequences. The parameters under investigation are vowel, closure, and release duration in a selected set of German disyllabic words. The words include systematically varied word-medial VOWEL LENGTH /a/ versus /a:/ preceded by the contrasting stops /p, b/, /t, d/, and /k, g/. One point of interest is the extent to which the duration of the vowel and of the closure interact in distinguishing the sets of consonants in intermediate position. The results provide evidence for an anticipatory vowel-lengthening effect before VOICED stops instead of a nearly constant duration of the “vowel + closure” sequence as claimed in the literature. Both LONG and SHORT vowels show a lengthening effect when preceding VOICED stops. Further, closure durations of VOICED stops are shorter than those of VOICELESS stops, but are not a function of preceding VOWEL LENGTH. If the stop closures somehow “compensate” for the greater lengthening of the LONG vowels, they should show a larger duration difference when preceded by LONG vowels, which they do not. Following the results of the production study, a tentative model for the temporal vowel and obstruent production is proposed.