English Linguistics

This study reports on a production experiment investigating acoustic vowel shortening as a function of syllable structure in German. Ten speakers were recorded producing mono- and disyllabic target words differing in vowel quality (low, mid and high vowels) and in the number of coda consonants, that is, the number of consonants following the stressed vowel. The results show that the acoustic vowel duration is significantly shorter when (1) the number of coda consonants increases and (2) another syllable is added to the monosyllabic target words. The degree of vowel shortening is similar between (1) and (2), that is, adding a coda consonant to a monosyllabic target word with an open syllable shortens the vowel duration to the same degree as adding anentire syllable to this target word. In addition, our results show that all vowels, regardless of quality, undergo shortening, thus preserving their intrinsic durations.