ISCA Archive - Durational variation of vowels as produced by Arab students (original) (raw)

Durational variation of vowels as produced by Arab students

M. I. Al-Anani

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the degree of influence of Arabic vowel duration in 'emphatic' and 'non-emphatic' contexts on the production of English sequences. The specific questions asked were the following: (i) What is the average Arabic vowel duration in 'emphatic' and 'non-emphatic contexts ? (ii) Is vowel durational variation a function of the complex features of 'emphasis'? Judging by the spectrographic evidence obtained, it has been established that duration of Arabic vowels as well as of syllables vary according to the complex features of 'emphasis', whose domain is more than one segment in length. Such features are carried over to English.