Voice Onset Time Across Gender and Different Vowel Contexts in Telugu

Abstract

This study was aimed at measuring voice onset time across vowel contexts and gender in Telugu (one of the south Indian languages) speaking young adults. Considering twelve participants, group I consisted of six adult males in the age range of 19–26 years and Group II consisted of six adult females in the age range of 19-25 years. A set of 18 CV syllables with plosives /p/,/t̪/,/k/ and their voiced cognates /b/ /d̪/,/g/ in different vowel contexts /a/,/i/,/u/ were considered. VOT measurements were made using PRAAT (version 5.3.17) software program. Considering vowel context, the current study results showed least VOT in the context of /a/ when compared to /i/ or /u/ vowel context. Another observation on comparison of VOT across gender revealed no significant difference. This finding augments our understanding on the physiology of speech production and also variation in sub phonemic features of plosives such as VOT with varying vowel contexts in Telugu.