High vowels in southern British English: /u/-fronting does not result in merger

This study reports on the acoustic properties of the front vowel /i/ and the fronted back vowel /u/ in Standard Southern British English (SSBE). These two vowels are realized with very similar (and for some tokens overlapping) values of F2, so that F2 does not seem to be a reliable acoustic cue for the distinction between the two vowels. To test further possible cues to the English front-back contrast, we analyzed the steady-state formants and diphthongization for F1, F2 and F3, and duration and F0. We found that /u/ and /i/ are clearly distinguishable by their direction and degree of diphthongization of F2 and, to a lesser extent, by diphthongization of F3, but also by their steadystate F1, F2 and F3.