Abstract: This study investigated the dispersion of vowel space and vowel distance in Truku, and how these two factors interact with gender and stress. The participants were grouped into 5-vowel, 4-vowel, and 3-vowel categories, according to the number of vowels they perceived to be in their language. Acoustic analysis of the participants’ production of 77 disyllabic words revealed that more discernable patterns could be attributed to the 5-vowel and 3-vowel groups, whereas the 4-vowel group exhibited fewer discernable patterns. Two versions of Dispersion Theory are used to interpret the observed differences between 5-vowel and 3-vowel groups in terms of both vowel space and vowel distance. Gender differences in the size of overall vowel space corroborated previous research. In addition, stress was found to influence vowel distribution with respect to overall space and distance between vowels.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 2
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