Re: quantity triggered vs. quantity sensitive stress

Matt Pearson wrote:
> Well, I don't know.  But it's certainly quite natural for stress to
> affect the phonetic shape of syllables.  In some African languages
> (I'm thinking specifically of Setswana) the vowels in penultimate
> stressed syllables are consistently lengthened.
Indeed, in English, stressed syllables tend to be somewhat longer, and
higher-pitched, than unstressed syllables, altho stress isn't the only
thing that affects length, as vowels followed by voiceless obstruents in
the same syllable tend to be shorter as well (e.g., [b&:d] vs. [b&t]).

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