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Words with only two syllables should not exhibit this elision, in order to satisfy
the word minimality condition discussed in Chapter 6. Indeed, if we look at Figure 8.36,
we see that this is the case. The figure presents two tokens of the word >== >== >== >== ‘elephant’.
In the first token, produced with rapid speech, we see that both vowels, rather than just
the first, are shortened. There is also a significant shortening of the intervening consonant
l as well.
Figure 8.36: Waveform and spectrogram of the word >== >== >== >== ‘elephant’ spoken with rapid
and normal speaking rates (Speaker K)
Thus, rapid speech appears to be one condition for the occurrence of vowel
shortening or elision of the first V in a CV1LV1 sequence. This does not exclude the
possibility that other factors may also produce this shortening. Further studies are needed
to consider other possible causes.
In Chapter 2, I noted that vowels with a contour tone are longer than those with
level tones. To test this, I compared two-syllable words containing a contour tone on the
first syllable against two-syllable words containing a level tone on the first syllable. I
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