Bilinguals produce language-specific voice onset time in two true-voicing languages

Abstract It is well established that early bilinguals who speak languages differ in the phonetic implementation of voicing contrast have language-specific systems. This study investigates separation two true-voicing languages, Basque and Spanish. We also describe system Gipuzkoan Spanish Basque, which closest dialect to Standard it has not yet been investigated experimentally. Twenty Basque-Spanish bilingual speakers dialects participated picture naming tasks. described their by measuring voice onset time (VOT) both Spanish, used linear mixed-effects models investigate between-language production differences. Our results show for first adult produce VOT ‘voiced’ plosives. finding demonstrates bilinguals’ systems during are more fine-grained than previously assumed, contributes a deeper understanding granularity