Compensatory vowel shortening before complex coda clusters in the production and perception of German monosyllables

The main aim of the present study was to investigate incremental coda compensatory shortening in the production and perception of German monosyllables including factors such as accentuation (i.e., accented vs deaccented) and codas’ manner of articulation (i.e., sonorant vs obstruent). Ten speakers produced real German words like /klɪŋ/ and /klɪŋt/. We measured the duration of the vowel and the first coda consonant (C1). Overall there was no significant vowel shortening effect. However, some speakers did show vowel shortening and even more so in accented tokens with sonorant codas. Additionally, all speakers tended to shorten C1. In a subsequent experiment, we tested whether listeners compensate for different degrees of vowel and C1 shortening. 21 subjects judged which vowel in selected pairs such as /klɪŋ/—/klɪŋt/ was longer. In two thirds of all pairs, listeners perceived vowels before simplex codas as longer—even in pairs with equal segment durations. While this overall bias indicates perceptual vowel shortening before complex codas, listeners nevertheless show tendencies to compensate for non-shortened vowels before complex sonorant codas, i.e., they were perceived as longer. Although there was less vowel shortening in production, listeners showed perceptual vowel shortening and some tendencies toward compensation in contexts that favor shortening.