Durational information in word-initial lexical embeddings in spoken Dutch

There is a growing body of research showing the importance of durational information for the disambiguation of temporarily ambiguous speech due to lexical embedding (e.g., rye in rises) in laboratory settings. The current research investigates whether durational differences are present in nonlaboratory speech. We focus on two types of speech: read speech and speech taken from interviews. Durations of thousands of instances of monosyllabic words and the same phonemic string embedded as the first syllable of a polysyllabic word (so-called embedded words) were obtained from the Spoken Dutch Corpus. These durations were first adjusted to many known sources of durational differences. A subsequent statistical analysis on these adjusted durations showed a significant difference in durations between monosyllabic words and embedded words for both speaking styles, suggesting that the presence of durational differences between monosyllabic words and embedded words is a general characteristic of spoken Dutch. Although the differences are small, it is argued that these durational differences are perceptually relevant.