<i>F</i> in the perception of lenis and fortis plosives

Abstract

This paper reviews articulatory data that provide evidence for a backward influence of stop manner production on the F0 of the preceding vowel in German, and it presents results from four experiments that show the relevance of pre-closure F0 for stop manner perception in the German word pair ‘‘leiden’’/‘‘leiten.’’ The results are compared with several perceptual investigations of monotone versus changing F0 on English monosyllables influencing the voiced/voiceless judgment for post-vocalic consonants. The theory that we are here dealing with a general auditory phenomenon instead of a production–perception relationship is refuted on the basis of the production and perception data available for German and for English.