Effects of utterance continuity on phonetic judgements

The fricative‐affricate distinction is signalled by a set of diverse acoustic features. To account for the integration of these features in perception, it is presumed that we perceive the articulatory act from which their coherence is derived. In the present research, our aim is to learn more about conditions which determine whether a particular set of acoustic cues is perceived as the consequence of a fricative or affricate production. To this end, we have examined the significance of short durations of silence for distinguishing word‐initial fricative from affricate following precursors which provide various degrees of utterance continuity. Results suggest that continuity of utterance affects the meaning of silence for the fricative‐affricate contrast.