A three-way VOT contrast in final position: data from Armenian

Abstract

Standard Eastern Armenian has a three-way VOT contrast among its oral stop series. While it is rare for such a 3-way contrast to be preserved in final position, Standard Eastern Armenian is claimed to do just this (Khachaturian 1988; Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996; Vaux 1998). This phenomenon provides an ideal opportunity to explore how prosodic structure influences the realization of a complex and delicate system of contrast maintained by temporal and saliency distinctions. The cues to this contrast, including VOT, closure duration, and burst amplitude, are examined in a variety of segmental and prosodic environments. The experiment evaluates effects of intonation phrase final, intermediate phrase final, word final, and syllable final positions. We find that the 3-way VOT contrast is maintained in those prosodic domains in which the stop consonants are final. Speakers make significant VOT distinctions among the target consonants within the same boundary condition, and across prosodic conditions, larger prosodic domains exhibit longer VOT values.