Realization of intervocalic consonant clusters in frequency words of the Russian language

Abstract

The article describes the realization of frequent words with the intervocalic consonant clusters [gd] and [ljk] in the oral speech of three groups of informants: adult native speakers of the Russian language, children aged four to six years and Chinese students learning Russian as a second language (929 realizations of 11 words). The data obtained confirm the hypothesis that the most frequent form of reduction of the analyzed combinations of consonants in Russian speech is the loss of the first consonant. However, the variants with the reduction of the consonant and without it are equally probable in the speech of native Russian speakers for the majority of the analyzed words. In adult native speakers of Russian, there is a tendency to maintain a consonant cluster when the word is at the absolute beginning of the inter-pause interval. Children aged four to six years tend to use only one variant of the consonant clusters in each of the considered words. The main distinctive feature of Russian speech for Chinese students is the large number of sound changes in both intervocalic consonant combinations, as well as the statistically significant prevalence of the full pronunciation over the variant with the loss of the first consonant in the intervocalic cluster for all words with the [ljk] combination. The results can be used to improve existing automatic speech recognition systems, as well as in teaching Russian as a second language.