Voice Onset Time, Frication, and Aspiration in Word-Initial Consonant Clusters

TLDR

The study aims to explain regularities in voice onset time by examining production strategies, perceptual cues, and articulatory mechanisms, and to derive rules for predicting VOT in connected speech. VOT and frication burst durations were measured from spectrograms of word‑initial consonant clusters, and additional VOT data from connected discourse were analyzed to formulate predictive rules. VOT varied with plosive place of articulation and following vowel/sonorant, being longer before sonorants and high vowels, while burst durations and aspiration intervals showed similar patterns across environments, including aspiration in s‑sonorant clusters.

Abstract

The voice onset time (VOT) and the duration of the burst of frication noise at the release of a plosive consonant were measured from spectrograms of word-initial consonant clusters. Mean data from three speakers reading English words in a sentence frame indicated that the VOT changed as a function of the place of articulation of the plosive and as a function of the identity of the following vowel or sonorant consonant. Burst durations varied in a similar way such that the remaining interval of aspiration in /p, t, k/ was nearly the same duration in comparable phonetic environments. The VOT was longer before sonorants and high vowels than before mid- and low vowels. Aspiration was also seen in an /s/-sonorant cluster. To explain these regularities, production strategies and perceptual cues to a voicing decision for English plosives are considered. Variations in VOT are explained in terms of articulatory mechanisms, perceptual constraints, and phonological rules. Some VOT data obtained from a connected discourse were also analyzed and organized into a set of rules for predicting voice onset time in any sentence context.