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Vowel duration in English adjectives in attributive and predicative constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2019

JOAN BYBEE  and
RICARDO NAPOLEÃO DE SOUZA
JOAN BYBEE
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
RICARDO NAPOLEÃO DE SOUZA
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico
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Abstract

Using ten English adjectives, this study tests the hypothesis that the vowels in adjectives in predicative constructions are longer than those in attributive constructions in spoken conversation. The analyses considered a number of factors: occurrence before a pause, lexical adjective, vowel identity, probability given surrounding words, and others. Two sets of statistical techniques were used: a Mixed-effects model and the Random Forest Analysis based on Conditional Inference Trees (CIT). Both analyses showed strong effects of predicative vs. attributive constructions and individual lexical adjectives on vowel duration in the predicted direction, as well as effects of many of the phonological variables tested. The results showed that the longer duration in the predicative construction is not due to lengthening before a pause, though it is related to whether the adjective is internal or final in the predicative construction. Nor is the effect attributable solely to the probability of the occurrence of the adjective; rather construction type has to be taken into account. The two statistical techniques complement each other, with the Mixed-effects model showing very general trends over all the data, and the Random Forest / CIT analysis showing factors that affect only subsets of the data.

Keywords

constructionadjectivesvowel durationRandom Forest analysisfinal lengtheningword probability
Type
Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 555 - 581
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2019 

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Footnotes

*

We are grateful to Earl K. Brown of Brigham Young University, Volya Kapatsinski of the University of Oregon, and Chris Koops and Caroline Smith of University of New Mexico for reading an earlier draft and making helpful suggestions.

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