The role of multiple acoustic properties in specifying the internal structure of phonetic categories

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Abstract
The extent to which a phonetic segment may be specified by more than one acoustic property was investigated using the trading relation between vowel duration and closure duration, two properties known to play a role in specifying the voicing contrast for intervocalic bilabial stops. Specifically asked was whether a change in preceding vowel duration results in a comprehensive remapping between closure duration and phonetic category, or whether trading effects are confined to the category boundary. Two series of disyllables were created ranging from /aba/ through /apa/ to * /apa/ (an exaggerated /p/) having initial vowel durations of 153 and 250 ms, respectively. Closure duration in each series varied from 20 to 400 ms. A preliminary experiment revealed a standard trading relation, in that the /b/‐/p/category boundary was located at a longer closure duration for the stimuli with a long, compared to a short, preceding vowel. In the main experiment, listeners were asked to judge each disyllable in each series for the goodness of its consonant as a member of the /p/ category. For both series the /p/ category was perceived as having internal structure, with a limited range of stimuli being judged as the best exemplars. Furthermore, the range of best exemplars for the long vowel series was displaced relative to that for the short vowel series toward longer values of closure duration. These findings indicate that the acoustic properties in question trade against each other not only at the phonetic category boundary but also within the category. This results in a comprehensive remapping of phonetic category structure similar to that observed in earlier research for changes in speaking rate. [Work supported by NIH.]

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