14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999


Patterns of Assimilation Nasality in English as a Function of Vowel Height

Anne Putnam Rochet, Bernard L. Rochet

University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Assimilation nasality patterns for high, mid and low vowels were studied in two dialects of North American English (Canadian & southeastern American). Native speakers (n=24) produced CVC, NVC, CVN and NVN tokens. The vowel portion of each oral and nasal acoustical signal was transduced by a Nasometer, digitized, and the degree of nasalance established as: % nasalance = nasal rms/(nasal + oral rms) x 100. The high vowels in both dialects exhibited significantly more assimilation nasality than lower vowels in all nasal contexts. In addition, anticipatory nasalization was significantly more extensive than carry-over nasalization for all speakers and all vowels, and significantly more so for the southeastern American speakers than those who spoke Canadian English.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Rochet, Anne Putnam / Rochet, Bernard L. (1999): "Patterns of assimilation nasality in English as a function of vowel height", In ICPhS-14, 699-702.