Factors Conditioning Consonant Duration in Consonantal Context: With Special Reference to Initial and Final Consonant Clusters in English

Abstract

A report of a study of the durational aspects of the English consonants in the inital and final consonant clusters in an attempt to define some of the factors conditioning consonant duration in the above context. The problem is a highly multidimensional one. The relevance of the intrinsic qualities of the consonants (voice, place, and manner of articulation) was studied; the positional factors (the position of the consonant in the cluster, the number of cluster elements, and the position of the cluster in the word) assumed to cause durational variance. An overall treatment has not been possible for discussing the influence of contextual factors (voice, place, and manner of articulation of neighboring consonants and preceding vowel). Only samples suitable for statistical analysis were chosen for this slightly restricted analysis. However, it is assumed that the importance of the factors concerned as a source of dispersion has been given an adequate treatment. Finally, the alleged interconnections within the various groups of factors have been illustrated. The internal interrelationships of the groups of factors has not been estimated, but certain conclusions on the ranking of the factors can be drawn. In this connection, emphasis is put on a moderate interpretation of the results achieved by the analysis of variance, as the heterogeneity in the occurrence of the consonants allows scope for interpreting the results of a multivariate analysis. A detailed presentation of the results concerning the separate classes of consonants included in the summaries after the description of the measured values is given. The general applicability of the main tendencies observed is presented. The explanation of the durational variations relies mainly on the joint effect of the assumed factors. The interrelationship of the intrinsic, positional, and contextual factors has not been estimated, but judging from the individual analyses, a hypothesis on the predominantly stronger conditioning effect of the positional factors could be offered for the different classes of consonants in comparison with the contextual factors.