Behavioral and neural correlates of vowel length in German and of its interaction with the tense/lax contrast

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This project investigates behavioral and neural correlates of German vowel length, in interaction with the tenseness distinction in the German vowel system. In the first part of the project vowel length is investigated in its own right with the distinction between [aj and [aa]. Following up on related experiments in other languages, we want to first document categorical perception of this distinction. Further, we want to study the neural correlates of the additional length unit of the long vowel using MEG in two neurophysiological experiments. In the second part of the project the interaction of vowel length with the tense/lax distinction is investigated. The question under investigation is whether length or tenseness is the crucial (underlying) feature relative to which the other is secondary (derived) in stressed positions. For this purpose, we propose a new experimental design that employs a two-dimensional matrix of acoustic continua in the two dimensions length and tenseness. We expect that the way in which the category-boundary runs through this matrix will provide clear evidence as to whether length or tenseness is perceptually more decisive. This will be tested both in a behavioral experiment and in an MEG experiment.