Prosodic and durational influences on the formant dynamics of Japanese vowels.

Abstract

The relationship between prosodic structure and segmental realisation is a central question within phonetics. For vowels, this has been typically examined in terms of duration, leaving largely unanswered how prosodic boundaries influence spectral realisation. This study examines the influence of prosodic boundary strength-as well as duration and pauses-on vowel dynamics in spontaneous Japanese. While boundary strength has a marginal effect on dynamics, increased duration and pauses result in greater vowel peripherality and spectral change. These findings highlight the complex relationship between prosodic and segmental structure, and illustrate the importance of multifactorial analysis in corpus research.