The effects of fundamental frequency level on voice onset time in normal adult male speakers.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of fundamental frequency (F(0)) on stop consonant voice onset time (VOT). VOT was measured from the recordings of 56 young men reading phrases containing all 6 English voiced and voiceless stops in word-initial position across high-, medium-, and low-F(0) levels. Separate analyses of variance for the voiced and voiceless stops revealed no significant main effect for F(0) for the voiced stops but a significant F(0) effect for the voiceless stops. Across the voiceless stops, productions at high F(0)s displayed significantly shorter VOTs than productions at low or mid F(0)s. The findings indicated that researchers must take into account the F(0) level at which voiceless stop VOT is measured.