Voice Onset Time in English voiceless stops is affected by following postvocalic liquids and voiceless onsets

Voice Onset Time is an important characteristic of stop consonants that plays a large role in perceptual discrimination in many languages, and is widely used in phonetic research. The current paper aims to account for Voice Onset Time variation in English that has defied previously understood phonetic and lexical factors, particularly involving stops that are followed in the word by liquids and voiceless obstruents. 122 Canadian English speakers produced 120 /p/- and /k/-initial words (n = 17 533), and word-initial Voice Onset Time was analyzed. It was found that Voice Onset Time is shorter when the following syllable starts with a voiceless obstruent, and that this effect is mediated by speech rate. Voice Onset Time is also longer before postvocalic liquids, even when they are intervocalic. Voice Onset Time generally decreases through the course of the task, and speakers tend to drift during the course of a word reading task, and this is best accounted for by the residual Voice Onset Time of recently spoken words.