Two stimulus continua, formed of digitally-edited natural speech tokens, had an identical VOT range but varied in their stem. The /pεn/-/bεn/ minimal pair, meaningful in both languages, was used as a base for identification tests, which were presented with either an English or a French precursor word before each token. The use of spectral information at vowel onset, which constitutes a stronger cue to the voicing contrast in English than in French, was investigated in French-English bilinguals in order to determine whether the primary language in terms of early experience determines acoustic cue weighting. (5) Learners who begin producing /b d g/ in their L1 with English-like short-lag VOT values as the result of the phonetic category restructuring mentioned earlier increase VOT in L1 /p t k/ in order to maintain contrast at a phonetic level of organization between /b d g/ and /p t k/ in the L1. This means that bilinguals are apt to have three phonetic categories for word-initial stops but only two phonemic categories for the same stops.
(4) Establishing new phonetic categories for English /p t k/ does entail the “loss” of pre-existing L1 phonetic categories for /p t k/. The restructured categories are used in both languages. (3) They restructure L1 phonetic categories for /b d g/ to accommodate input received in both the L2, here English, and the L1. (2) Native speakers of Romance languages establish new phonetic categories for English /p t k/ but not /b d g/. (1) Learning to produce and perceive the VOT dimension in L2 stops depends more importantly on phonetic input than age of first exposure to the L2. The analyses yielded several conclusions of theoretical importance. I then present new data for Italian learners of English. Here I review previously published research which examined the production and perception of /b d g/ and /p t k/ in the initial position of English words by native speakers of Spanish, French and Italian.
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