Ultrasound analysis of the Czech phoneme /ř/.

Abstract

Previous studies comparing the articulation of the contrasting Czech trills /ř/ and /r/ have described /ř/ as being produced with the laminal portion of the tongue at a more anterior location with a narrower channel [Ladefoged and Maddieson, The Sounds of the World’s Languages Blackwell, Oxford (1996)] and using a tighter constriction than /r/ [Dankovičová, JIPA 27, 77–80 (1999)]. These observations correspond to the IPA symbol [r] with a raising diacritic, which replaced the former symbol corresponding to a voiced strident apico-alveolar trill. The current project uses B-mode and M-mode ultrasound imaging and acoustics to test these descriptions of /ř/. Preliminary results based on a single participant revealed nearly identical constriction locations for the two trills, with the /ř/ constriction vibrating a larger tongue surface area. Overall, the tongue surface is lower and more forward in the mouth for /ř/ than for /r/, making [r] with a lowering diacritic a more appropriate choice for representing this sound. Spectrographic evidence also reveals important temporal properties for /ř/. Results for additional participants will be reported. [Work supported by the NSERC.]