Even though rhotics are very common sounds in the languages of the world, there is a consensus in the literature that they are articulatorily complex. Not only do they tend to be acquired at the last stages of the acquisition period, but also their distribution is usually constrained (cf. Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996, Żygis 2005). As a consequence of being complex, rhotics manifest a strong susceptibility to phonetic change. The present paper reports the results of an experiment that aimed at describing various physical realisations of the Polish phoneme /r/ placed in intervocalic position. The data presented in the article show that in this position speakers do not articulate a tap, but in most cases they produce either a fricative or an approximant. In the light of the data, high vowels constitute an environment that is more conducive to this sort of reduction than mid or low vowels.
The present paper reports the results of an empirical study that was designed to provide acoustic evidence that there exist at least two different vowel reduction patterns in the Russian language. The acoustic characteristics of the three peripheral vowels [i, a, u] were examined. Given that low vowels are dispreferred in unaccented positions, particular attention was paid to immediately pre-tonic [a] sounds that result from 1st degree reduction and which are weakened to [ə] by some speakers. The acoustic and statistical analyses revealed that vowel reduction in Russian is a speaker-specific phenomenon. Although all subjects centralised unaccented high vowels, two of them applied two degrees of reduction, whereas the other two exhibited a different reduction pattern as in their speech the differences between the acoustic parameters of the [a] and [ə] sounds did not reach the level of statistical significance (p > .05). The acoustic data strongly suggest that if a speaker applies one degree of vowel reduction, then the [i, e, a, ə, u] inventory is simplified to [i, ə, u] rather than [i, a, u] as there is a highly significant difference (p < .001) between the sounds found in immediately pre-tonic position and the [a] sounds placed in stressed syllables.
No abstract
językoznawca, adiunkt w Instytucie Anglistyki Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego. Tytuł doktora nauk humanistycznych uzyskał w 2008 roku w Instytucie Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu im. A. Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. Prowadzi zajęcia z fonetyki i fonologii oraz morfologii. Jego zainteresowania badawcze koncentrują się na procesach mowy szybkiej oraz zmianie językowej. Autor kilkunastu publikacji z zakresu fonetyki i fonologii. 1 I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of the paper. 2 Peter Ladefoged, Ian Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages, 217 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers); Maria-Josep Solé, "Aerodynamic characteristics of trills and phonological patterning",
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