Word-Initial Consonant Lengthening in Stressed and Unstressed Syllables in Russian

摘要

This paper deals with consonant lengthening effects caused by word-initial position in interaction with stress-induced lengthening. Experiment 1, based on a 30-h speech corpus, showed that in general word-initial lengthening is more pronounced in stressed syllables than in unstressed. The lengthening effect is also stronger for consonants in CV syllables compared with CCV syllables. Additionally, it was shown that consonant duration serves to signal word stress, and the reduction pattern for consonants is similar to that for vowels. Experiment 2, based on controlled laboratory data, showed that not all the speakers choose the strategy of signaling word boundaries and word stress with consonant lengthening; presumably, it depends on the speaking style. It was also shown that in CCV syllables the first consonant might be responsible for signaling word boundary, while the second-lexical stress.