Summary: | In this paper we describe an experimental analysis of vowel duration in Spanish. Some factors that seem relevant in other studies for characterizing vowel duration were analized here using speech data from two speakers. These factors are: vowel identity, phrase boundaries, lexical stress, open versus closed syllables and effect of the postvocalic consonant. Our results show that Spanish vowels have intrinsic duration and there are some contextual factors, like phrase final boundary, stressed syllables and open syllables, that influence vowel lengthening. For voicing and manner of articulation of postvocalic consonant, significant differences were not found.
|