Abstract
Phoneticians traditionally describe American English /ð/ as a voiced, nonsibilant, interdental fricative. However, in flowing speech, /ð/ often sounds stoplike. This study investigates the acoustic attributes of stoplike, as well as continuant, variants of /ð/ in “the” occurring in various phonological conditions in text‐reading and conversation modes. The results of spectrographic analysis allow for the definition of five degrees of constriction and two types of constriction release, burst and smooth formant transition into the following segment. The degree of constriction is a coarticulatory effect of the preceding phoneme. Smooth formant transitions tend to occur with less constricted degrees of constriction; a burst may occur with any degree of constriction and is prevalent across phonological conditions. Articulatory interpretations that explain these and other variations of /ð/ are forwarded. The results also show intermodal differences in /ð/ in that there is a higher occurrence of some coarticulatory effects of the preceding phoneme in the conversation mode than in the text‐reading mode.
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