The role of contrast maintenance in the temporal structure of the rhyme

We explore the relationship between temporal elements of the VC rhyme as a function of inherent vowel length and coda voicing in Australian English. Our findings for single monosyllabic words suggest that temporal organisation of the rhyme may be modulated by the strength of the durational contrast associated with long/short vowel pairs. Vowels such as /ɐː/ vs /ɐ/ which contrast by duration alone in Australian English are compared to vowels /iː/ vs /ɪ/ for which duration is just one of the important contrastive cues. In contexts where coda voicing has the potential to disrupt length contrast, such as when the long vowel /ɐː/ occurs in a rhyme with a voiceless coda, we found that vowel length was maximised at the expense of coda closure duration. We propose that the requirement of contrast maintenance may place constraints on competing temporal influences and affect the organisation of elements within the syllable rhyme.