Rhotics.New Data and Perspectives

This book provides an insight into the patterns of variation and change of rhotics in different languages and from a variety of perspectives. It sheds light on the phonetics, the phonology, the socio-linguistics and the acquisition of /r/-sounds in languages as diverse as Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Kuikuro, Malayalam, Romanian, Slovak, Tyrolean and Washili Shingazidja thus contributing to the discussion on the unity and uniqueness of this group of sounds

More on the Rhotic Tap and the Implications of Its Structure

The topic of this paper is the rhotic segment with one constricted interval, the tap. This sound is typically considered to be, from the phonetic point of view, a simple small constricted interval because this is how it appears on a spectrogram when it is in intervocalic context. More recent studies (Stolarski 2011; Savu 2011, 2012) consider and argue that the tap is actually comprised of two vowel-like elements flanking this small constriction. After presenting the argument leading to this conclusion and briefly discussing the quality of the tap’s vocoids as shown by phonetic experiments, I approach the implications of this sound having the aforementioned structure. Specifically, I address the consequences for the status of syllabic /r/ in Macedonian and the different perception of /C(ɨ)rC/ sequences by speakers of Romanian and Slavic languages with syllabic /r/. In addition to this, I show how this structure of the tap suggests a possible phonetic account for vowel-rhotic metathesis between consonants as the migration of the constriction on a vocalic continuum provided by the tap and the full vowel

More on the Rhotic Tap and the Implications of Its Structure

This sound is typically considered to be, from the phonetic point of view, a simple small constricted interval because this is how it appears on a spectrogram when it is in intervocalic context. More recent studies Stolarski 2011; Savu 2011, 2012 consider and argue that the tap is actually comprised of two vowel-like elements flanking this small constriction. After presenting the argument leading to this conclusion and briefly discussing the quality of the tap’s vocoids as shown through phonetic experiments, I approach the implications of this sound having the aforementioned structure. Specifically, I address the consequences for the status of syllabic /r/ in Macedonian and the different perception of /CɨrC/ sequences by speakers of Romanian and Slavic languages with syllabic /r/. In addition to this, I show how this structure of the tap suggests a possible phonetic account for vowel-rhotic metathesis between consonants as the migration of the constriction on a vocalic continuum provided by the tap and the full vowel.This sound is typically considered to be, from the phonetic point of view, a simple small constricted interval because this is how it appears on a spectrogram when it is in intervocalic context. More recent studies Stolarski 2011; Savu 2011, 2012 consider and argue that the tap is actually comprised of two vowel-like elements flanking this small constriction. After presenting the argument leading to this conclusion and briefly discussing the quality of the tap’s vocoids as shown through phonetic experiments, I approach the implications of this sound having the aforementioned structure. Specifically, I address the consequences for the status of syllabic /r/ in Macedonian and the different perception of /CɨrC/ sequences by speakers of Romanian and Slavic languages with syllabic /r/. In addition to this, I show how this structure of the tap suggests a possible phonetic account for vowel-rhotic metathesis between consonants as the migration of the constriction on a vocalic continuum provided by the tap and the full vowel

The phonetics of Modern Hebrew rhotics

This paper investigates manner variation of Israeli Hebrew rhotics with respect to two factors: prosodic position and speaker gender. An acoustic experimental study shows that although the Hebrew rhotic phoneme tends to be a dorsal approximant, it is significantly more likely to undergo fortition in onset position. This fortition is a result of target overshoot, the rhotic subsequently being produced with a greater degree of constriction than that which would have resulted in an approximant, subsequently surfacing as a stop, a fricative, a tap or a trill. Furthermore, in onset position, female speakers show more variation and produce fewer approximants than male speakers

Rhotics.New Data and Perspectives

This book provides an insight into the patterns of variation and change of rhotics in different languages and from a variety of perspectives. It sheds light on the phonetics, the phonology, the socio-linguistics and the acquisition of /r/-sounds in languages as diverse as Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Kuikuro, Malayalam, Romanian, Slovak, Tyrolean and Washili Shingazidja thus contributing to the discussion on the unity and uniqueness of this group of sounds