An electromagnetic articulography investigation of the Czech trill-fricative

Abstract

Previous studies have found that the degree of tongue grooving during production of fricatives correlates with their place of articulation. Czech has a cross-linguistically rare alveolar trill-fricative <ř>, which would be expected to pattern with alveolar fricatives in terms of the tongue grooving. The current study employs electromagnetic articulography (EMA) to investigate differences in tongue grooving between the trill-fricative and alveolar/post-alveolar fricatives. Czech native speakers produced words with target consonants in word-initial, intervocalic, and word-final positions, with sensors being attached to both the midline and the sides of the tongue. An angle between these sensors was calculated, and taken as a measure of the degree of grooving. The results (currently based on the data obtained from one speaker) showed that, contrary to the prediction, the degree of grooving for the trill-fricative was closer to the post-alveolar fricatives than to the alveolar fricatives, yet unique in its distribution. While the degree of grooving remained relatively stable temporally for the fricatives, it tended to gradually decrease for the trill-fricative. Furthermore, <ř> differed from the post-alveolar fricatives in having a significantly lower tongue body. The results thus suggest a unique articulatory configuration for the Czech trill-fricative. [Work supported by SSHRC.]