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A Note on Vowel Length in American Speech

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

R-M. S. Heffner
R-M. S. Heffner*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
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Extract

In Language 15.105 Professor Rositzke draws attention to the question of the effect of the initial consonant upon the duration of the vowel which follows it. There is a tendency in some quarters to find that initial voiced consonants are followed by longer vowels than are initial voiceless consonants, and to seek to explain this as a 'natural physiological compensation between stop-energy and vowel duration', with the implication that the voiced consonant is weaker and hence followed by a longer vowel, by way of ‘compensation’.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 16 , Issue 1-Part1: January-March , March 1940 , pp. 33 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © 1940 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 Englische Lautdauer; Skrifter utgifna af K. Humanistika Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala 8, no. 3, 1903.

2 Motor Phonetics 29; Archives néerlandaises de Phonétique expérimentale 3, La Haye 1928.

3 From my own data: pit .134, pet .156, pat .205, pot .171, put .149.

4 Cf. Rousselot, Principes 721.

5 Arch. néer. de Phon. exp. 11.1-28 (1935).

6 Kenyon, American Pronunciation6; Ann Arbor, 1935.

7 Stetson, Motor Phonetics 27.

8 Cf. Gutzmann, Physiologie der Stimme und Sprache 28-39 (1928).

9 American Speech 12.128-34 (1937).

10 Gregor Pallier, Untersuchungen zur Quantität der Vokale und Konsonanten, Diss. Marburg, 1934.