Timing in speech can be divided into two categories. One includes physical factors (the physical duration of speech sounds and the internal time structure inside the sound), the other includes linguistic determination, i.e., the proportions of phonological short-to-long opposition and the theoretical specific sound durations that result from articulatory movements. The physical duration of a speech sound is the time from the beginning to the end of the sound, including the transient phase, when pronunciation process passes from one speech sound to another during speaking. The duration of speech sounds also depends on the speaker (slow speech, fast one). The average articulation speed of Hungarian speech is 13 sounds/s. The reported data relate to this value.
