Epenthesis as a Phonetic Process in the Russian and Persian Languages

Russian elision as lenition to zero

“…Interestingly, Iskandari et al (2020) mention the mysterious presence of "word-medial syncope" in Russian, that is, the deletion of segments across syllable boundaries instead of within them. Phonologically, this behavior is accounted for through intervocalic consonant deletion combined with vowel hiatus resolution, 4 as the deleted vowel is determined by vowel reduction and may not necessarily align with syllable boundaries.…”

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While there has been extensive documentation of elision in colloquial Russian speech (Iskandari et al 2020;Vorob'eva 2019;Evtjugina 2019;Andrjushhenko 2011;Pugh 1993;Dahl 1909), there is minimal phonetic research on its underlying causes. The present study performs an exploratory acoustic analysis on spontaneous Russian speech and ties its phonetic correlates to previously described lenition processes by demonstrating their continuous nature.

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“…In fact, the majority of Russian elision literature is limited to descriptions of speech as opposed to phonetic studies; notable examples of the former are Vorob'eva's recent work on Russian colloquial speech which details some intervocalic consonant and weak vowel deletion as well as Andrjushhenko's documentation of elision in contemporary fiction dialogues (Vorob'eva 2019;Andrjushhenko 2011). Iskandari et al (2020) classify Russian elision into the following categories: word-final vowel deletion, consonant cluster simplification, word-initial consonant deletion, word-medial syncope, and haplology. The present study will forgo this categorization, focusing instead on individual consonants and vowels.…”