Effects of Consonantal Context on the Pronunciation of /æ/ 85tested vowels in symmetrical CVC environments only, they make no claims
about the inÀ uence of preceding versus following environment. They do,
however, consider /hVd/ as a null environment, which may imply that preced-
ing /d/ has more inÀ uence than following /d/. Hillenbrand, Clark and Nearey
provide inconclusive evidence on the effects of initial versus ¿ nal voiced con-
sonants, although, as mentioned previously, they found that preceding conso-
nants have more inÀ uence overall.
Hillenbrand et al. (2001: 755) suggest that one physical characteristic of
voiced consonants that may contribute to the raising effect they have on adja-
cent vowels is that the larynx is slightly lower in the production of voiced
consonants than it is in the production of voiceless consonants. Although this
in itself may not cause a lowering of F1, Stevens (1998: 474) discusses changes
in F1 that occur in conjunction with the changes in airÀ ow, transglottal pres-
sure, vocal tract volume, and vocal tract stiffness that are all associated with
the production of voiced stops.
3.5 Preceding Place of Articulation
The environments tested for the effects of preceding place of articulation were
labial, apical, liquid apical, velar, /h/ and vowel initial. The words used are
listed by environment in Table 3.6. Results show that preceding apicals and
velars were correlated with signi¿ cantly raised [æ] in four speakers. All four
of the speakers for whom this result is signi¿ cant were men. Also, only two of
the Group A speakers showed any signi¿ cance for this feature, indicating again
that this effect is not correlated speci¿ cally with the Northern Cities Shift.
Table 3.6 Preceding Place of Articulation Features and Words—Excluded (single-
ton): jazz (palato-alveolar)
Place of Articulation Words
Labial badge, banker, bath, pal, past, pat, mash, mattress
Apical thank, dad, tab, zap, Saginaw, Sam, nap
Liquid brag, rack, rag, black, Lansing, laugh, plant
Velar gamble, gang, cabin, cash
/h/ or Vowel Initial has, have, apple, askIndependent factors indicate that raising in the context of velars is a universal
feature. The tongue body is high during the articulation of the velar consonants