The effect of speaking rate on the perception of vowel-initial and vowel-final [h]

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown that the perception of speech segments is often ratedependent. Thus, with faster speaking rate the boundary between, say, [b] and [p], measured in terms of voice-onset time (VOT), moves to shorter values of VOT. The present paper reports an experiment where the perception of vowel-initial [h] and vowel-final [h], i.e. preaspiration, is compared in words at three different speaking rates. With slower speaking rate the boundaries, as expected, move to longer values of aspiration and preaspiration respectively, though, interestingly, less so in the case of aspiration than in the case of preaspiration.