The Duration of [s] in English Words

TLDR

The study measured [s] duration in English words spoken by three talkers in a “Say ________instead” frame, finding that it varies with the stress status of the following vowel nucleus but not with the degree of that stress. The [s] is longer before stressed vowels, shorter before unstressed vowels, in word‑final positions, multisyllabic words, and consonant clusters, and its duration is unaffected by syllable or morpheme boundaries; the high variability before unstressed vowels indicates less precise articulation of unstressed syllables, supporting lexical stress as a feature of both consonants and vowels.

Abstract

The duration of the phonetic segment [s] has been measured from recordings made by three talkers of English words embedded in the frame sentence “Say ________instead.” Results indicate that the duration of [s] depends on whether the following vowel nucleus is stressed or not, but the duration is independent of the degree of stress on the vowel. An [s] is longer in prestressed position and shorter before unstressed vowels and in word-final position. The [s] duration does not appear to depend on the position of a syllable in the word. An [s] is shorter in multisyllabic words and in consonant cluster sequences. The locations of syllable boundaries and morpheme boundaries do not influence the duration of an intervocalic [s]. The relatively large durational variability of [s] before an unstressed vowel suggests that unstressed syllables are articulated with less precision than are stressed syllables and supports the notion that lexical stress is a feature the domain of which encompasses both consonants and vowels.