Department of Linguistics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2017 Oct;142(4):2168. doi: 10.1121/1.5007728.
One of the most widely studied observations in linguistic phonetics is that, all else being equal, vowels are longer before voiced than before voiceless obstruents. The causes of this phonetic generalization are, however, poorly understood and several competing explanations have been proposed. No studies have so far measured vowel duration before stops with yet another laryngeal feature: ejectives. This study fills this gap and presents results from an experiment that measures vowel duration before stops with all three laryngeal features in Georgian and models effects of both closure and voice onset time (VOT) on preceding vowel duration at the same time. The results show that vowels have significantly different durations before all three series of stops, voiced, ejective, and voiceless aspirated, even when closure and VOT durations are controlled for. The results also suggest that closure and VOT durations are inversely correlated with preceding vowel duration. These results combined bear several implications for the discussion of causes of vowel duration differences: the data support the hypotheses that claim that laryngeal gestures, temporal compensation, and closure velocity affect vowel duration. Some explanations, especially perceptual and airflow expenditure explanations, are considerably weakened by the results.
在语言学语音学中，研究最为广泛的现象之一是，在其他条件相同的情况下，元音在浊音之前比在清音闭塞音之前更长。然而，这种语音概括的原因还没有被很好地理解，已经提出了几种相互竞争的解释。迄今为止，还没有研究测量具有另一种声门特征的塞音之前的元音持续时间：喷射音。本研究填补了这一空白，并展示了一项实验的结果，该实验在格鲁吉亚测量了具有三种声门特征的塞音之前的元音持续时间，并同时对闭合和嗓音起始时间（VOT）对前元音持续时间的影响进行建模。结果表明，即使控制了闭合和 VOT 持续时间，元音在所有三个系列的塞音之前，即浊音、喷射音和清音送气音，都具有显著不同的持续时间。结果还表明，闭合和 VOT 持续时间与前元音持续时间呈反比关系。这些结果结合起来对元音持续时间差异原因的讨论有几个影响：数据支持了那些声称声门运动、时间补偿和闭合速度影响元音持续时间的假设。一些解释，特别是感知和气流消耗的解释，由于结果而大大减弱。
