VOT of American English stops with prosodic correlates

Abstract

It is known that in a word-medial bisyllabic sequence, a stop beginning a stressed syllable (e.g., /p/ in póodle) has a much longer voice-onset time (VOT) than following an unstressed syllable (e.g., /p/ in strípper). The current study investigates VOT of stops in unstressed syllables not immediately following the primary stressed syllable in the word, e.g., before the primary word stress (the /p/ in Winnepegósis, the /k/ in baccaláureate), and after the primary word stress (the /p/ in Óedipus, the /k/ in américan). A set of 42 test words were recorded in carrier phrases spoken by 4 native speakers of American English. In bisyllabic words, word initial or stressed-syllable initial stops (e.g., póodle, appéal) averaged 63 ms while following unstressed stops (e.g., strípper) averaged 25 ms. Stops in unstressed syllables preceding the primary stressed syllable (e.g., Winnepegósis) averaged 32 ms while those stops in following unstressed syllables (e.g., Óedipus) averaged 41 ms. To account for these results, we need at least four VOT levels. Also interesting is the interaction between stop place /p/ vs /k/ and position: Óedipus has the same VOT as américan while Winnepegósis and baccaláureate differ significantly.