Phonological and Lexical Conditioning of TRAP Vowel Duration in Australian English

Abstract The trap vowel /æ/ is known to display a complex variable duration in many English dialects, but this phenomenon is understudied in Australian English. Previous analyses suggest that trap duration is sensitive to the effects of following phonetic environments in complex ways, but that a lexically specific effect may also operate in determining duration. This study aims to investigate phonetic and lexical effects through an acoustic analysis of trap duration in Australian English. Speakers from a range of areas in Sydney that vary in their ethnic and linguistic diversity produced the trap vowel in select phonetic contexts. Results suggest that trap exhibits a complex hierarchy of durations which are conditioned by the characteristics of the following coda, as well as a notably long duration in the affective adjectives mad and sad compared to other words with coda /d/ that were tested. However, these effects were found to be relatively less pronounced among speakers from more ethnically and linguistically diverse regions of Sydney. This may be attributed to high levels of language and dialect contact occurring in more diverse areas resulting in a gradual reduction in the degree of trap durational variability.