European Conference on Speech Technology Edinburgh, Scotland, UK September 1987

Durational Variation of Vowels as Produced by Arab Students

M. I. Al-Anani

University of Jordan, Department of English, Amman, Jordan

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the degree of influence of Arabic vowel duration in 'emphatic' and 'non-emphatic' contexts on the production of English sequences. The specific questions asked were the following:
(i) What is the average Arabic vowel duration in 'emphatic'
and 'non-emphatic contexts ? (ii) Is vowel durational variation a function of the complex features of 'emphasis'?
Judging by the spectrographic evidence obtained, it has been established that duration of Arabic vowels as well as of syllables vary according to the complex features of 'emphasis', whose domain is more than one segment in length. Such features are carried over to English.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Al-Anani, M. I. (1987): "Durational variation of vowels as produced by Arab students", In ECST-1987, 2092-2095.