Acoustic Measurements of the “Fake” Vowel Length and the Three Degrees of Vowel Length in Yupik Eskimo

Abstract

One peculiarity of Yupik Eskimo is the “fake” vowel length which is triggered by a schwa ə in a conditioned environment. The degree of the fake vowel length has never been seriously questioned nor recognized by Eskimologists as being distinct, phonetically or phonemically, from the intrinsically long or short vowel. It has thus been ignored in the phonemic analysis. Based on acoustic evidence, the present paper argues that there are three distinct degrees of vowel length in Yupik Eskimo, hence recognizing the degree of the fake vowel length as being significant. It also discusses the perceptual difficulties in identifying the fake vowel length which are primarily due to its unsubstantial contrast with the other degrees of vowel length. Measurements to these vowel lengths were made on spectrographic displays to determine their degrees and to find the acoustic attributes of their perceptual abstruseness.