Timing in the speech of children and adults

Abstract

The duration of phonetic intervals are sometimes longer in the speech of young children than adults, although it is not clear at what age timing can be said to have become “adult‐like.” This study examined speech timing as a function of speaker age. Adults and three groups of children (mean ages: 5;0, 8;0, 10;8) produced utterances like “Bob Bob Bob” with a tube in the corner of the mouth. The duration of “vowels” (/a/, /I/, /i/) and singleton and abutting stops (/b/,/b♯b/,/b♯p/) was defined by means of variation in supraglottal pressure. There were few between‐group differences in the absolute duration of vowels, and none for bilabial closure intervals. All groups showed the same relative effects of phonetic factors. For vowels, the effect of position‐in‐utterance, number of syllables per word, vowel height, and stop voicing were comparable across groups. Position‐in‐utterance, vocalic environment, gemination (i.e., /b/ versus /b♯b/), and position with regard to stress also showed similar effects on consonant duration for each group.