A phonetic analysis of voicing assimilation in Russian

• Published in: Journal of phonetics Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 97 - 114
• Main Authors: Burton, M.W., Robblee, K.E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-04-1997
• Subjects: Language; Phonetics; Russian language; Speech
• ISSN: 0095-4470; 1095-8576
• DOI: 10.1006/jpho.1996.0037

This study investigated phonetic effects of regressive voicing assimilation across prepositional boundaries in Russian. Five native speakers produced sentences containing four fricative-stop combinations /zd,sd,zt,st/ and four stop-fricative combinations /dz, tz, ds, ts/. Overall, acoustic analyses strongly supported a process of regressive voicing assimilation. For cluster-initial fricatives, consonant duration depended on whether the following consonant was voiced or unvoiced, not on underlying voicing. Furthermore, for initial stops and fricatives, duration of voicing was consistent with the voicing characteristics of the following consonant rather than those of the underlying consonant. In addition, cluster-initial obstruents showed significant differences in relative amplitude of voicing that depended on the following environment, not on the underlying voicing. However, some evidence did suggest that neutralization was not complete. Differences in relative amplitude depending on underlying voicing were observed in the middle and end of the interval for some of the clusters. In addition, there were some speaker differences in the production of voicing.