This study aims at determining the influence of vocal tract inertia on the following lenition processes: phonetic vowel reduction, vowel deletion, spirantisation, place assimilation and consonant cluster simplification. Since speech has to be realised within the limits imposed on the speaker by the physical properties of the speech apparatus, even universally preferred sound combinations, i.e. strings of CV syllables, can constitute an articulatory difficulty at fast rates due to the inertia of the active speech organ. Under such circumstances, speakers of various languages frequently apply lenitions that are not employed in their language in natural speech and, most importantly, there are striking similarities in how certain difficulties are overcome. The major conclusion that can be drawn from the data is that lenitions affecting CVC and VCV sound sequences are inertial, whereas those affecting consonant clusters are non-inertial.
Even though rhotics, be it taps, trills or approximants, are very common sounds in the world’s langauges, there is a consensus in the literature that they constitute an articulatory diffi culty. Not only are they acquired at the last stages of the acquisition period, but also their distribution is usually constrained. Since speakers fi nd them diffi cult to produce, rhotics are particularly susceptible to lenition. 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.
PL
W literaturze fonetycznej polska głoska /r/ opisywana jest jako drżąca, tzn. taka, która jest artykułowana poprzez wykonanie serii gestów, na ogół czubkiem języka, powodujących na przemian otwieranie i zamykanie aparatu mowy. Jednakże w mowie dźwięk ten ma kilka różnych artykulacji, np. frykatyw, aproksymant lub [r] jednouderzeniowe ‘tap’. Artykuł ten opisuje cechy artykulacyjne i akustyczne różnych fizycznych realizacji tego dźwięku w pozycji interwokalicznej.
The paper covers the process of elision in fast speech of young Łódź inhabitants. In the first part of the paper characterized are basic terms used in the paper, general attitude of standardized Polish towards elision, as well as, in a concise way, all the categories of phonetic ellipsis. In the analytical part one can find statistical data received from the research, which are then confronted with those received by other researchers. All the processes described are also visualized by the use of oscillograms and spectrograms, as well as compared to the rules of standard Polish.
PL
-
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.