Perceived vowel quantity in Swedish: Effects of postvocalic voicing

Abstract

Swedish is described as having a distinction between phonologically long and short vowels. This distinction is realized primarily through the duration of the vowels, but in some cases also through resonance characteristics of the vowels. In Swedish, like many languages, vowel duration is also longer preceding a voiced postvocalic consonant than a voiceless one. This study examines the weight of vowel duration and the first and second formant frequencies F1–F2 frequencies when distinguishing phonologically long and short vowel before a voiceless consonant (experiment 1) and before a voiced consonant (experiment 2). For three pairs of Swedish vowels ([i:]-[ɪ], [o:]-[ɔ], [ɑ:]-[a]) 100 /kVt/ (experiment 1) and 100 /kVd/ (experiment 2) words were resynthesized having ten degrees of vowel duration and ten degrees of F1 and F2 adjustment. In both experiments listeners decided whether presented words contained a phonologically long or short vowel. Reaction times were also recorded. Results show that vowel duration is a more dominant cue than the first and second formant for distinguishing phonologically long and short vowels. However, for [ɑ:] and [a] the perceptual influence of vowel duration and spectral attributes appears to be more complex. These findings are discussed for vowels preceding postvocalic voiceless and voiced consonants.