TY - JOUR
T1 - Hiatus resolution and linking 'r' in Australian english
AU - Cox, F.
AU - Palethorpe, S.
AU - Buckley, L.
AU - Bentink, Samantha
PY - 2014
Y1 - 2014
N2 - Hiatus occurs when the juxtaposition of syllables results in two separate vowels occurring alongside one another. Such vowel adjacency, both within words and across word boundaries, is phonologically undesirable in many languages but can be resolved using a range of strategies including consonant insertion. This paper examines linguistic and extralinguistic factors that best predict the likelihood of inserted linking 'r' across word boundaries in Australian English. Corpus data containing a set of 32 phrases produced in a sentence-reading task by 103 speakers were auditorily and acoustically analysed. Results reveal that linguistic variables of accentual context and local speaking rate take precedence over speaker-specific variables of age, gender and sociolect in the management of hiatus. We interpret this to be a reflection of the phonetic manifestation of boundary phenomena. The frequency of the phrase containing the linking 'r', the frequency of an individual's use of linking 'r', and the accentual status of the flanking vowels all affect the/É;/strength (determined by F3), suggesting that a hybrid approach is warranted in modelling liaison. Age effects are present for certain prosodic contexts indicating change in progress for Australian English. © 2014 International Phonetic Association.
AB - Hiatus occurs when the juxtaposition of syllables results in two separate vowels occurring alongside one another. Such vowel adjacency, both within words and across word boundaries, is phonologically undesirable in many languages but can be resolved using a range of strategies including consonant insertion. This paper examines linguistic and extralinguistic factors that best predict the likelihood of inserted linking 'r' across word boundaries in Australian English. Corpus data containing a set of 32 phrases produced in a sentence-reading task by 103 speakers were auditorily and acoustically analysed. Results reveal that linguistic variables of accentual context and local speaking rate take precedence over speaker-specific variables of age, gender and sociolect in the management of hiatus. We interpret this to be a reflection of the phonetic manifestation of boundary phenomena. The frequency of the phrase containing the linking 'r', the frequency of an individual's use of linking 'r', and the accentual status of the flanking vowels all affect the/É;/strength (determined by F3), suggesting that a hybrid approach is warranted in modelling liaison. Age effects are present for certain prosodic contexts indicating change in progress for Australian English. © 2014 International Phonetic Association.
U2 - 10.1017/S0025100314000036
DO - 10.1017/S0025100314000036
M3 - Article
SN - 0025-1003
VL - 44
SP - 155
EP - 178
JO - Journal of the International Phonetic Association
JF - Journal of the International Phonetic Association
IS - 2
ER -