DABARTINĖS LATVIŲ BENDRINĖS KALBOS ILGŲJŲ BALSIŲ TRUKMĖ
THE DURATION OF LONG VOWELS IN STANDARD LATVIAN

Summary/Abstract: The quantity of vowels is the most characteristic feature of the vocal structure of Standard Latvian. It is traditionally accepted that the difference in the articulation of long and short vowels manifests itself in that the long vowels are pronounced with greater tension than the short ones. All Latvian vowels may be used in any syllable of the word, which, as it is claimed, does not change their quality, i.e. if the vowel is long and tense, it preserves the same quantitative and qualitative characteristics both in stressed and unstressed syllables. The vowels which occur after consonants do not affect their quality: before consonants both front and back vowels are pronounced almost identically. To say more, there is no contrast between hard and palatalised consonants before back vowels. This paper presents the results of an investigation into the quantity of long stressed and unstressed vowels in Standard Latvian, using instrumental and statistical methods. The results show that the quantity of unstressed vowels in Latvian is not the same as that of stressed ones: although the former undergo reduction, quantitative reduction of vowels of different quality is not identical. Among long vowels, the high [i,] and the medium [o,] are most distinctly quantitatively reduced, the low [a,], the medium [e,], and the high [u,] are slightly less reduced, and the low [æ,] least of all. Stress and the vowel’s position in a word with respect to stress make an impact on the quality of vowels: in the case of long vowels, second post-accented variants demonstrate greater shortening. Long post-accented vowels turn into slightly shorter allophones: they are shorter than long stressed vowels and considerably longer than short ones. The duration differences of unstressed vowels demonstrating various quality are rather inconsiderable; moreover, the order of the vowels hardly conforms with the relationship between their duration and rise. KEY WORDS: duration, stressed and unstressed vowels.

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