Voicing and frication at the phonetics-phonology interface: An acoustic study of Greek, Serbian, Russian, and English

Abstract

This paper presents the results of an acoustic investigation of /f, v, s, z/ in Greek, Serbian, Russian, and English. The study is motivated by phonological considerations, specifically the cross-linguistic phonological identity of /v/ as either an obstruent (Greek, English), a sonorant (Serbian), or as a segment that patterns with both obstruents and sonorants (Russian). The investigation is framed in two ways, reflecting different interpretations of what it means for /v/ to be classified as part of the obstruent or sonorant system of a language: (1) a cross-linguistic comparison of /v/ tokens tackles the question of whether /v/ tokens are realized with frication indicative of an obstruent or sonorant realization; (2) within-language investigations into the relationship between voicing and frication type probe whether /f, v/ are a voicing pair analogous to /s, z/. Four acoustic measures are considered: duration, harmonicity, spectral centroid, and spectral energy difference. Furthermore, devoicing rates of /v, z/ are examined, contributing to our understanding of how aerodynamic tensions in voiced fricatives are resolved on a language-specific basis. Results show that in all languages, /z/ devoices more than /v/, but that otherwise fidelity to underlying voicing differs across languages. The cross-linguistic comparison of /v/ tokens and the within-language investigations suggests a partial correlation between phonological identity and phonetic realization, but that there is not a one-to-one relationship between phonological patterning and phonetic realization.