Vowel duration in Afrikaans: the influence of postvocalic consonant voicing and syllable structure.
A production study was conducted to investigate the effect of vowel lengthening before voiced obstruents, and the possible influence that the openness versus closedness of syllables have on the temporal structure of vowels in some languages. The results revealed that vowels were significantly longer when followed by voiced consonants than voiceless consonants. Vowel duration did not, however, vary with syllable structure. However, vowels in open syllables followed by [+ voiced] consonants tended to be longer than when the following consonants were [- voiced]. These results are discussed in the context of current knowledge of other languages.
Wissing
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Department of Linguistics, Potchefstroom University for C. H. E., Republic of South Africa.
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D013019:South Africa