Acoustic analysis of three marked trills: welsh r̥ʰ, slavic rʲ and czech r̝
Acoustic analysis of three marked trills: welsh r̥ʰ, slavic rʲ and czech r̝

Summary/Abstract: This paper reports the results of an acoustic study concerned with the amount of allophonic variation shown by three unique trills: the spirantised /r̥ʰ/ of Welsh, the palatalised /rʲ/ of Russian and Ukrainian as well as the fricated /r̝/ of Czech. These trills are unusual by virtue of having a secondary articulatory feature, which poses an additional challenge to the speaker. To make the sound pronounceable, speakers apply phonological processes that reduce the amount of articulatory complexity. The results of the analysis point to the conclusion that, although the acoustic properties of the three trills differ to a great extent, they frequently undergo reduction to a fricative sound, which appears to be the most common articulatory variant encountered in the examined speech samples.

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