Closure Duration and the Intervocalic Voiced-Voiceless Distinction in English

Abstract

Thanks to the means available for speech analysis and synthesis, there is at present considerable knowledge of the acoustic differences whereby we distinguish among the various sounds of English. We know, for example, what the more important acoustic cues are by which listeners decide whether a stop sound is velar, alveolar, or bilabial. In the case of the stops, moreover, we know by and large what the acoustic differences are between the members of each of the homorganic pairs p-b, t-d and k-g (in other words, between the so-called voiced and voiceless stops). But we are as yet unable to state with any exactness the extent to which each of these acoustic differences separately affects our ability to discriminate between the two kinds of stops. Moreover, where progress has been made in this direction it is certainly in some measure due to the fact that we have dealt chiefly with the stops in those positions where the voiced-voiceless contrast is phonetically maximal, that is, in initial and final positions.