Three Different Strategies of Voice Coarticulation in Modern Standard Russian

Abstract

The paper reports some new data based on an experimental study in voice coarticulation of voiced and voiceless obstruents adjacent to sonorants as a function of place and manner of articulation of these consonants in Standard Modern Russian. The results of the experiment based on the 384 tokens collected from 24 participants confirm once again that in word internal clusters of [sonorant + obstruent + sonorant] coronal consonants the voice coarticulation of the obstruent is observed; it may be determined by the surrounding sonorants. The coarticulation in question may be realized in three different ways. In the case of sonorants not identical in place and manner of articulation [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + alveolar vibrant] the closure part of the dental stop becomes voiced throughout, but this accommodation in phonation type does not lead nevertheless to the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization since the the contrast in question is still maintained by means of phonetic parameters other than voice (phonation itself), such as closure duration, burst duration (being significantly higher in underlyingly voiceless stops) and relative overall intensity (being noticeably higher in underlyingly voiced obstruents). On the other hand, in the case of dental sonorants identical in place and manner of articulation [nasal + voiceless stop + nasal], where the maximum effect of coarticulation for an homorganic stop was expected, the contrast in burst duration is eliminated since no burst of dental stop is found in the position before an homorganic nasal, but the closure part of the stop does not acquire voicing in order to prevent the voiced/voiceless phonemes’ neutralization. Finally, in the case of [dental nasal + dental voiceless stop + dentalveolar lateral] consonantal clusters the closure part of the dental stop is voiced throughout and the increased burst duration leads to (generally complete) devoicing of the following lateral. The direction of coarticulation in [ntlj] clusters is progressive, it is carried out gradually, left to right.