Specification in Context-Devoicing Processes in Polish, French, American English and German Sonorants

摘要

This study investigates voicing properties of Polish, French, American English and German sonorant consonants, particularly rhotics. The analysis was conducted on four speech databases recorded by professional speakers. The term voicing profiles used in this article refers to the frame by frame voicing status of the sonorants, which was obtained by automatic measurements of fundamental frequency values and extraction of consonantal features. Results show resyllabification processes in Polish and French obstruent liquid clusters in word final positions, as well as contextual effects on devoicing in word initial and word medial American English and German obstruent sonorant clusters.