F 0 gives voicing information even with unambiguous voice onset times

Abstract

The voiced/voiceless distinction for English utterance-initial stop consonants is primarily realized as differences in the voice onset time (VOT), which is largely signaled by the time between the stop burst and the onset of voicing. The voicing of stops has also been shown to affect the vowel’s F0 after release, with voiceless stops being associated with higher F0. When the VOT is ambiguous, these F0 ‘‘perturbations’’ have been shown to affect voicing judgments. This is to be expected of what can be considered a redundant feature, that is, that it should carry a distinction in cases where the primary feature is neutralized. However, when the voicing judgments were made as quickly as possible, an inappropriate F0 was found to slow response time even for unambiguous VOTs. This was true both of F0 contours and level F0 differences. These results reinforce the plausibility of tonogenesis, and they add further weight to the claim that listeners make full use of the signal given to them, even when overt labeling would seem to indicate otherwise.