Vowel Duration in the Geminate Contexts: Observations from Oriya Speaking Children and Adults

Abstract

Temporal characteristics of vowels in geminate contexts (phonological long vowels) were observed through acoustic analyses of vowels occurring in word pairs of Oriya language. Productions of Oriya speaking typical developing children in the age range of 3-14 years and young adults (25-35 years) in response to recorded model were subjected to acoustic analyses to measure the duration of vowels. Results revealed a developmental trend such that the duration of all geminate vowels differed across the different age groups with no difference was observed between male and female participants in each age group. Findings are discussed in terms of the age at which children's productions reached adult like durations and comparison with duration of singleton production of vowels reported in an earlier study.