Phonetics and Phonology of Speaking Styles: Reduction and Elaboration in Speech Communication Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain September 30 - October 2, 1991

Acoustic and Lexical Vowel Reduction

Dick R. van Bergem

Institute of Phonetic Sciences, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In this paper two different types of vowel reduction are discussed. Acoustic vowel reduction is a loss of vowel quality due to a relaxed articulation in less informative parts of an utterance. The effect of acoustic vowel reduction is illustrated with an experiment. Lexical vowel reduction is the substitution of one vowel by another that is easier to pronounce. It is hypothesized that lexical vowel reduction is the systematic extension of acoustic vowel reduction.

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Bibliographic reference.  Bergem, Dick R. van (1991): "Acoustic and lexical vowel reduction", In PPoSpSt-1991, paper 010.