Connected speech processes

In English, apart from vowel reduction in lexically unstressed syllables, a number of other casual speech reduction phenomena have been described that occur in unstressed syllables and further increase the contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables (Shockey, 2003: 22-32). Schwa absorption describes cases where a schwa disappears, while another sound in its vicinity takes on its syllabic property. The resulting element may be a sonorant, a fricative or even a voiceless vowel. Schwa suppression is a phenomenon describing schwa assimilation by a neighbouring vowel resulting in a loss of its syllabicity. Further, reduction of closure for obstruents occurs particularly often in syllables immediately following a stressed syllable. This type of lenition includes a loss of closure in stops and reduced approximation in fricatives. Tapping of alveolar stops or clusters is a process resulting in very short consonants, produced with a lower control over the articulation movements. Although this phenomenon is typical especially for American, Australian and Irish English varieties, it occurs occasionally in SSBE as well. Moreover, due to the more demanding aerodynamic-articulatory conditions of the production of voiced obstruents, phonetic voicing in obstruents is avoided where possible. In unstressed syllables, phonologically voiced stops are rarely phonetically voiced, and also fricatives are mostly at least partially devoiced. This occurs frequently (but not only) in a context of following voiceless consonants. Conversely, phonologically voiceless segments are sometimes produced as voiced (lenis), especially

in intervocalic positions. This is more likely to happen to continuant consonants, including those that became continuants by the lenition of stops. A number of processes have also been described that minimise the sequences of consonants or vowels and restructure the sequence of sounds towards a more regular alternation of consonants and vowels, which is assumed to be more natural as well as articulatorily less demanding (Shockey, 2003: 32-44). In order to avoid the adjacency of two vowels, a linking [r] may be inserted between two consecutive vowels in careful speech. In casual speech, on the other hand, processes like [v/0] alternation30 _{in the word of and /}

l/-vocalisation31

may be used to preserve a CV-type syllable structure. Other modifications of syllable codas include the realisation of /t/ as a glottal stop, and the elision of /d/ between two consonants (most often after /n/ or /l/). A very common process is nasal relocation. This can occur when a nasal is followed by a homorganic obstruent, particularly a voiceless stop. Due to a modification of the timing of the velum lowering gesture, the nasal consonant is only reflected in the nasalisation of the preceding vowel. /h/-dropping is especially prevalent in certain accents of English, but in most English accents, it may occur in short unstressed words following a consonant (especially a fricative). In weak forms, this process is part of standard pronunciation. Finally, several processes have been reported that can be classified as articulatory assimilations. /ð/-reduction may affect words starting with /ð/ that are preceded by an alveolar consonant. /ð/ is then assimilated to the preceding alveolar consonant, usually in the articulation manner or voicing (Shockey, 2003: 43-44). Gimson (1980: 290-291) also mentions regressive assimilation of the articulation place of word-final alveolar consonants, which occurs frequently in colloquial speech, and coalescence32 _{of alveolar obstruents with /}

j/.

30 _{Alternation between the pronunciation of the preposition of as [əv] and [ə], where the latter is typically}

produced when followed by a consonant

31 _{Loss of tongue contact in word-final velarised /l/ before consonants}

32 _{Coalescence (or fusion) is a process in which two segments occurring in a sequence combine into a}

single segment, usually exhibiting some characteristics of both of the original segments. It may be regarded as a type of assimilation.

To the best of our knowledge, no systematic description of reduction processes in Norwegian has been provided. However, Broch (1935) lists a number of cases of drastic reductions or “contractions” occurring in rapid speech in East Norwegian. The examples serve to illustrate the rhythmical principle that guides the restructuring of sound-matter in disyllabic stress-groups composed of a stressed (heavy) syllable followed by an unstressed (light) one. A large part of the discussion focusses on frequently occurring constructions formed by an auxiliary verb and negative particle, adverb or pronoun, which form fixed combinations (“fixed clichés”) that are particularly prone to reduction as a result of the rhythmical principle. According to the observations presented in this paper, syncope occurs frequently in unstressed syllables in words containing three or more syllables, either manifesting as deletion of the whole syllable or only the vowel, which then leads to creation of more complex, often otherwise unusual consonant clusters. Vowels of two syllables may also be fused into a single syllable without forming a recognised diphthong (synizesis). On the other hand, disyllabic words that form a stress group on their own do not undergo such reduction. Here, vowels in unstressed syllables may be reduced to schwa or syllabic consonants, but the number of syllables is not affected. Apparently, factors such as speech rate, speaking style, speaker’s status and education, but also the context and the possibility of misunderstanding, play an important role in determining the degree of reduction.

The following contact assimilation phenomena and other connected speech phenomena known to occur in Czech are described based on Palková (1997: 144-147, 323-338). Apart from regressive voicing assimilation which will be discussed in more detail in Section 1.3.3, assimilations of articulation place and manner occur in Czech. While manner assimilation is rather rare, (regressive) assimilation of the place of articulation occurs regularly and in some cases it is even obligatory. The occurrence of the articulation place assimilations across word boundary is, however, considered a feature of substandard production. Other assimilation (accommodation) phenomena occurring in casual speech in Czech include the nasalisation of vowels adjacent to a nasal consonant and intervocalic consonant lenition (causing change of stops into fricatives or approximants, producing a voiceless sound as voiced, or a complete disappearance of a

sound). However, the occurrence of these phenomena is typically classified as a feature of substandard pronunciation or a regional dialect. Other described connected speech phenomena include consonant elisions resulting in consonant cluster simplification. Here, Czech orthoepic rules define which particular elisions are allowed in the spoken standard to avoid meaning confusion or a drastic reduction of intelligibility. In substandard production, an even wider variety of elisions may occur. With regard to vowels, the shortening of phonologically long vowels in word endings was observed to occur in casual substandard production. In some of the regional dialects, shortening may occur even in long vowels in word stems. Although in Czech, vowel reduction in unstressed syllables does not occur, vowel quality may be reduced as a result of fast or sloppy pronunciation. This tends to happen more frequently in vowels located between consonants with a similar place of articulation, typically in longer words. Vowel quality reduction may cause a significant reduction of intelligibility and it takes place only in substandard production. Apart from the connected speech processes discussed above, it seems relevant to mention certain other phenomena which occur in Czech, and whose function is to facilitate the segmentation of the speech stream into words. These include primarily the presence of a glottal stop (or glottalisation) before a word-initial vowel, or word medially after a prefix. Glottal stops occur automatically after a pause. Moreover, the pronunciation norm requires a glottal stop use between a non-syllabic preposition and a word-initial vowel, and in a range of other contexts it is recommended for the sake of intelligibility. Its absence is typical for some regional dialects and for careless speech. Glottal stops in Czech also trigger regressive voicing assimilation. In some contexts (preceding /o/), a word-initial prothetic /v/ may occur in place of a glottal stop in substandard pronunciation.