VOT

VOT, in its most common scholarly use, stands for Voice Onset Time. It is a phonetic measure of the time interval between the release of a stop consonant (such as p, t, k) and the onset of voicing, typically expressed in milliseconds. VOT is a key variable in distinguishing voiceless and voiced stops and in assessing the degree of aspiration that accompanies a release.

Measurement and interpretation: VOT is measured from the acoustic release of the closure to the onset of the first periodic vocal fold vibration. It can be positive (voicing begins after release), zero (voicing begins near the moment of release), or negative (voicing begins before release, a phenomenon known as prevoicing). The ranges of VOT vary by language and by the place of articulation.

Linguistic significance: Across languages, aspirated voiceless stops usually have longer VOTs, while unaspirated voiceless stops have shorter VOTs, and voiced stops have the shortest or even negative VOT values. VOT is widely used in phonetic and phonological analysis, cross-language comparison, speech perception experiments, and language acquisition research.

Applications: In addition to theoretical work, VOT serves practical roles in forensic phonetics, speech technology, and automated speech recognition, where distinct stop consonants must be reliably differentiated.

Other uses: VOT is an acronym that can appear in other domains, but Voice Onset Time is the standard and most widely recognized meaning within linguistics and related fields.