Duration of Syllable Nuclei in English

This study deals with the influence of preceding and following consonants on the duration of stressed vowels and diphthongs in American English. A set of 1263 CNC words, pronounced in an identical frame by the same speaker, was analyzed spectrographically, and the influences of various classes of consonants on the duration of the nucleus were determined. The residual durational differences are analyzed as intrinsic durational characteristics, associated with each syllable nucleus. The theory is tested with a set of 30 minimal pairs of CNC words, uttered by five different speakers.