Practice question · Multiple choice
Phonetic vowel length depends on both lexical vowel category and the following consonant. What follows from this interaction for a transcriber measuring vowel duration?
Hints
- Does phonetic environment override phonological length distinctions in acoustic measurements?
- What specific phonetic property changes when a vowel precedes a voiceless coda?
Show the answer
D. Short vowels before voiced codas can exceed long vowels before voiceless ones
Why
Pre-fortis clipping shortens vowels before voiceless consonants, meaning physical duration does not map cleanly onto phonological categories. Quality remains stable even when phonetic length fluctuates.
Practise English Vowels I: the Quadrilateral
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More questions on English Vowels I: the Quadrilateral
- Why are vowels described by tongue position rather than by place of articulation?
- Daniel Jones's cardinal vowels are the vowels of Received Pronunciation.
- Sort each accent feature by whether it is a MERGER or a SPLIT.
- How many monophthongs does the standard analysis of Received Pronunciation recognise?
- Which are true of vowel length in English?
- Match each dimension of vowel description to what it specifies.
- Complete the description of the vowel space.
- Arrange these vowels from the highest tongue position to the lowest.
- The consonant inventories of English accents differ far less than their vowel inventories.