Effect of Domain Initial Strengthening on Vowel Height and Backness Contrasts in French: Acoustic and Ultrasound Data

Purpose

Phonetic variation due to domain initial strengthening was investigated with respect to the acoustic and articulatory distinctiveness of vowels within a subset of the French oral vowel system /i, e, ɛ, a, o, u/, organized along 4 degrees of height for the front vowels and 2 degrees of backness at the close and midclose height levels.

Method

Acoustic and lingual ultrasound data were examined to characterize the production of vowels in intonational phrase initial position, compared with intonational phrase medial position, for 4 speakers.

Results

Formant values and estimates of lingual constriction location and degree differed according to the prosodic position independent of vowel duration, with a higher F1 for /a/, a higher F2 for /ɛ/, a backer constriction for /o/ and /a/ but a fronter constriction for /ɛ/, and a narrower constriction for /e, ɛ, u, o/ but a wider constriction for /a/. For most speakers, these variations enlarge the acoustic and/or articulatory distance between members of the pairs /e-ɛ/, /ɛ-a/, /u-o/, /i-u/, and /e-o/ but reduce the distinction within the pair /i-e/.

Conclusions

These changes in intonational phrase initial position are vowel dependent and frequently contribute to augmenting the phonetic distinctiveness between vowels contrasting along the height and backness dimensions.

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