THE REALIZATION OF THE VOWEL HIATUS IN THE EXTERNAL SANDHI IN RUSSIAN

Abstract

The article reports some results of an acoustic experiment comparing the Russian external hiatus, consisting of the front vowel [ь] at the end of a word after soft (palatalized) consonants and the vowel [a] at the beginning of the next word in different positions relative to the stress of the preceding and following words. Twenty native Russian speakers (10 men and 10 women), the age from 19 to 59, took part in the experiment. 664 collected tokens were analyzed using Praat software, measuring the duration values, the values of the first two formants and the mean values of F1 and F2 at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the transitional and stationary sections in isolated, strong, and weak phrase positions. The results show that in combinations of [ь] after soft (palatalized) consonants and the initial [a] of the following word, the largest duration in all phrasal positions is observed in the case of stressed [á], in the same combination the most pronounced change in timbre is recorded in isolated and in a strong phrasal position, while in a weak position, only the most pronounced change in F1 . In addition, in this case, the initial stationary section and the glottal stop at the junction of words are most often recorded; the smallest duration and the least significant change in formant structure in all phrasal positions were noted in combination with the second pre-stressed initial [a] of the following word; clusters with the first pre-stressed initial [a] of the following word in duration and timbre occupy an intermediate position between the two extreme cases, with the exception of the most pronounced change in F2 in a weak phrasal position.