Segments of the burst portions of stop‐consonant CV's, increasing in duration in 10‐msec steps from the burst onset, were identified by 18 listeners. The responses were analyzed for the correct identification of vowel features. Coarticulatory effects of the vowel on the burst were found to (1) occur early in the burst, (2) vary with consonant and vowel, and (3) vary with vowel feature. In general, however, front versus back tongue placement for the vowel was perceived correctly most often, tongue height next most often, and the tense versus lax feature least often. For some CV's, sufficient cues for above chance level of identification of a feature were contained during the shortest segments of the burst. The results lend support to the point of view, in the case of unvoiced stops, that listeners can narrow the choice of the following vowel to a small number of alternatives prior to the beginning of the formant transitions or voicing.