The influence of syllable structure and prosodic strengthening on consonant production in Shanghai Chinese

The present study investigated the effects of syllable structure and prosodic strengthening on the consonant production in SHC, which has a three-way contrast among aspirated, unaspirated and breathy (voiced) stops. Obviously they had different mechanisms, as glottal coda shortened the VOT while focus lengthened the VOT of aspirated and breathy stops, but they both increased the intensity. While the VOT of aspirated and breathy stops can be adjusted by syllable structure and focus, the VOT of unaspirated stops are quite stable, which is decided by its own phonetic feature and by the phonology system. The VOT of unaspirated stops is really short, so it can't be shortened by glottal coda; the difference between the VOT of unaspirated and breathy stops are really small, so the VOT of unaspirated stops can't be lengthened in focused condition, in order to maximize the three-way phonological contrast in stops. The results verified that prosodically driven enhancement of phonological contrast is determined by phonetic implementation of these (language-specific) phonetic features.