Contrastive vowel length and segment duration in production and perception in Djambarrpuyŋu

This paper deals with segment duration and phonological length in production and perception in the Australian language Djambarrpuyŋu. It provides an acoustic phonetic account of vowel and consonant duration to ascertain whether the phonetic evidence supports the analysis of contrastive vowel length in production. From a perception perspective, how Djambarrpuyŋu listeners use segment duration in categorising a pair of words that are proposed to be phonologically distinct by vowel length is tested. In the production study, phonemically long vowels were found to be approximately twice as long as short vowels, and consonants following short vowels were somewhat longer than when following long vowels, though the patterns were affected by syllable structure. In perception, listeners relied on vowel duration to distinguish between words that differed phonologically by vowel length, though consonant duration did influence the perceptual crossover point between words. The results are considered to address the questions of what evidence supports the vowel length contrast in Djambarrpuyŋu, and identifying the underlying mechanisms that result in the observed segment duration patterns.