Stop Release in Polish English — Implications for Prosodic Constituency

Abstract

<jats:p>Although there is little consensus on the relevance of non-contrastive allophonic processes in L2 speech acquisition, EFL pronunciation textbooks cover the suppression of stop release in coda position. The tendency for held stops in English is in stark opposition to a number of other languages, including Polish, in which plosive release is obligatory. This paper presents phonetic data on the acquisition of English unreleased stops by Polish learners. Results show that in addition to showing a tendency for the target language pattern of unreleased plosives, advanced learners may acquire more native-like VC formant transitions. From the functional perspective, languages with unreleased stops may be expected to have robust formant patterns on the final portion of the preceding vowel, which allow listeners to identify the final consonant when it lacks an audible release burst (see e.g. Wright 2004). From the perspective of syllabic positions, it may be said that ‘coda’ stops are obligatorily released in Polish, yet may be unreleased in English. Thus, the traditional term ‘coda’ is insufficient to describe the prosodic properties of post-vocalic stops in Polish and English. These differences may be captured in the Onset Prominence framework (Schwartz 2013). In languages with unreleased stops, the mechanism of submersion places post-vocalic stops at the bottom of the representational hierarchy where they may be subject to weakening. Submersion produces larger prosodic constituents and thus has phonological consequences beyond 'coda' behavior.</jats:p>

Beyond replication: An exact replication study of Łodzikowski (2021)

“…Although this could be an artefact of the course materials, another logical explanation is that Polish students want to learn more about the allophonic features of stops. As release is mandatory in Polish (Schwartz et al, 2014), we argue that learners may want to find out more about the contrasting allophonic features of English. The Polish students, as learners of English, may be aware of the differences.…”

“…(In their study, the distraction was a flashing digit that appeared on a screen after the participants heard the model pronunciation and before they imitated the stop.) Schwartz et al (2014) found that learners can be affected by their first language in the production of stops, but the mechanism for these patterns needs further research. A more recent study developed machine learning algorithms to assist Polish learners with using stop-related allophonic features and aspiration (Piotrowska et al, 2021).…”

“…For example, Rojczyk (2019) examined how Polish learners use allophonic cues to identify word boundaries, finding that they did so with 59% accuracy, comparable to results achieved by Spanish and French learners of English. Other scholars have focused on how Polish learners acquire allophones, especially stops (Rojczyk, Porzuczek & Bergier, 2013;Schwartz, Balas & Rojczyk, 2014). They consider stops to be particularly important for Polish learners because stop release is mandatory in Polish.…”