Results

Only four of the eight factors significantly affected vowel shortening: the type of vowel, the SES, the tempo, and how the vowel was typed. The frequencies and probabilistic weights for these four factors are listed in Table 4.1 in order of significance.

As shown in Table 4.1, the factor with the most significant effect on vowel shortening was the type of vowel, rounded vs. unrounded. The two round vowels ú and û were shortened more frequently than the unrounded í. Siptár (personal communication) has suggested that this effect may be attributed to the position of the vowel within the morpheme rather than to the difference in rounding (notice that all rounded vowels were morpheme-final and all unrounded ones were morpheme-internal in our test items); this possibility is discussed further in Section 4.

 

Table 4.1: Factors significantly affecting vowel shortening

Factor	N	%	p
Type of vowel
rounded	218/306	71	.65
unrounded	150/340	44	.36
Socio-economic status
university students	27/76	36	.27
others	341/570	60	.53
Tempo of speech
fast	204/323	63	.57
normal	164/323	51	.43
How the vowel was typed
short	210/340	62	.55
long	158/306	52	.45
Input probability .58
Overall rate of vowel shortening	57% (368/646)

University students strongly disfavored the shortening of vowels, while the other four socio-economic groups (teachers, sales clerks, blue-collar workers, and vocational trainees) showed a very weak favoring effect. Only two of the 17 speakers were students, and these two speakers were the only ones whose overall frequency of vowel shortening was less than 50% (see speakers B7213 and B7205 in Table 4.2 below). This factor does not directly reflect level of education (because of the one teacher among our speakers). Nor is it likely to reflect age: we know that vocational trainees and students are close in age, the former being about 16, the latter about 20. It should be noted, however, that because there are only two students, it is possible that this factor simply reflects speaker variation rather than SES; future analysis of data from more students and involving additional factors will help to determine the source of the effect on the dependent variable.

Fast speech favored vowel shortening, while normal speech disfavored it. The effect of the speed at which the passage was read on vowel shortening is unsurprising, given the results of researchers' intuitions and of previous studies: Kassai (1991: 70-72) demonstrated considerable shortening in the fast reading of two teachers and one vocational trainee. Ács and Siptár's (1994: 555) intuitive classification of vowel shortening as a characteristic of Hungarian fast speech is now supported by the empirical findings of our study.

And finally, the vowel was more frequently read short when it was typed short than when it was typed long. This effect, the typewriter effect, is the weakest of the four factors listed in Table 4.1, but it is nevertheless statistically significant. The interpretation of the typewriter effect will be discussed in Section 5 below. Figure 4.1 illustrates the four significant factors in graphic form.

  

Figure 4.1: The four factors which significantly affected vowel shortening

The frequencies and probabilistic weights for the four factors that did not significantly affect vowel shortening (speaker, sex, position of vowel within the word, and following sounds) are shown in Tables 4.2, 4.3, and 4.5.

 

Table 4.2: The effect of speaker and sex of speaker on vowel shortening

Factor	N	%	p
Speaker
B7301	28/38	74	.69
B7510	27/38	71	.65
B7515	26/38	68	.62
B7407	25/38	66	.59
B7125	24/38	63	.56
B7411	24/38	63	.56
B7402	22/38	58	.50
B7504	22/38	58	.50
B7308	21/38	55	.48
B7313	21/38	55	.48
B7403	21/38	55	.47
B7314	20/38	53	.45
B7330	20/38	53	.45
B7302	20/38	53	.45
B7514	20/38	53	.44
B7213	16/38	42	.37
B7205	11/38	29	.24
Sex of speaker
male	235/380	62	.50
female	133/266	50	.50

 

As shown in Table 4.2, individual speakers varied greatly in their overall frequency of vowel shortening, ranging from 74% (speaker B7301) to 29% (speaker B7205), with a corresponding variation in probabilistic weights. We could of course collapse speakers into subgroups who behave similarly with respect to vowel shortening, thus making this factor statistically significant. At the present time, however, we have no additional linguistic or extra-linguistic basis upon which to group speakers. Although it is possible that with respect to vowel shortening, speakers simply fall into subgroups not characterized by any other factor, we suspect that the similar behavior of subgroups of speakers is due instead to factors for which we have not coded, such as age or dialect background. We therefore leave this as a topic for future research.

Table 4.3 below shows the effect of the third factor that did not significantly affect vowel shortening: the position of the vowel within the word.

 

Table 4.3: The effect of the position of the vowel within the word on vowel shortening

Position	N	%	p
End of word	125/170	74	.51
Not end of word	195/408	48	.50

 

Given the large difference in the frequency of vowel shortening for the two variants, it seems strange that the probabilistic weights are the same and that this factor is not significant. However, cross tabulation of the position of the vowel with the type of vowel reveals that all of the vowels occurring at the end of the word were rounded, as shown in Table 4.4. Since vowel shortening is favored by round vowels (or by morpheme-final position, see below), the uneven distribution explains the high frequency of vowel shortening in vowels at the end of the word. For the 238 round vowels in Table 4.4, the frequency of vowel shortening is not significantly higher when the vowel is at the end of the word than when it is not at the end of the word (chi-square = 1.287, p < .30).

 

Table 4.4: Frequency of vowel shortening by type and position of vowel

	Type of vowel
Position	rounded		unrounded
End of word	125/170	74%	0/0	-
Not end of word	45/68	66%	150/340	44%
Total	170/238	71%	150/340	44%

 

These findings are not surprising in light of claims made in the literature earlier. Ács and Siptár (1994: 574-575) assert that in non-wordfinal closed syllables any long vowel may shorten. However, it is problematic to establish whether such shortening occurs with high vowels as well because length is greatly variable with high vowels. A large number of high vowels which are represented by long letters in standard orthography may shorten in polysyllabic words. For instance, wordfinal round high vowels as in fiú 'boy' and tetû 'louse' are usually pronounced short in ECH. Finally, the effect of the following sounds on vowel shortening was not significant. We measured this effect within three linguistic environments: the morpheme, the word, and the intonation unit. As shown in Table 4.5, in no case did the following sounds have a significant effect. It is interesting to note that both within the word and within the intonation unit, vowel shortening is less frequent when the vowel is followed by two consonants than under other conditions.

 

Table 4.5: The effect of the following sounds on vowel shortening

	N	%	p
Within the morpheme
no following sounds	170/238	71	.52
one following consonant	150/340	44	.48
Within the word
no following sounds	125/170	74	.55
following vowel	45/68	66	.46
one following consonant	67/136	49	.54
two following consonants	83/204	41	.45
Within the intonation unit
following vowel	72/102	71	.53
one following consonant	140/238	59	.53
two following consonants	108/238	45	.45

 

As mentioned above, Siptár (personal communication) has suggested that the effect we have attributed to the type of vowel - rounded vs. unrounded - discussed in conjunction with Table 4.1 should instead be attributed to the position of the vowel within the morpheme: rounded vowels occur only in morpheme-final position in our tokens, while unrounded vowels occur only morpheme-internally, followed by one consonant. This distribution is in fact indicated by the counts and frequencies in Tables 4.1 and 4.5, and it means that type of vowel and position within the morpheme are not independent factors, as VARBRUL analysis demands, but rather two factors measuring the same effect upon the dependent variable. Siptár (personal communication) has advanced strong linguistic arguments for attributing the effect to position within the morpheme rather than to type of vowel. There are number of phenomena tied to position within the morpheme, which are, at the same time, independent of rounding. For instance, morpheme-final low vowels lengthen before a suffix (e.g. kapa - kapát 'hoe - hoe+acc' and kefe - kefét 'brush - brush+acc') without regard to rounding. And each of the following three phenomena obtain regardless of the round/unround feature of vowels: (1) morpheme-final mid vowels are always long, (2) in monosyllabic words, morpheme-final vowels do not shorten (e.g. sí 'ski', bú 'sorrow', fû 'grass'), and (3) in monosyllabic words morpheme-internal vowels do not shorten (e.g. híd 'bridge', csúcs 'peak', tûz 'fire').

Future research using data not currently available - morpheme-internal round vowels and morpheme-final unround vowels - may help to determine whether the effect is due to the type of vowel or to the position of the vowel within the morpheme. If morpheme-internal round vowels favor shortening, then it will be clear that the effect is due to roundness rather than position. Similarly, if morpheme-final unround vowels disfavor shortening, then once again we know that the effect is due to roundness rather than position.