Oct 2026· Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies· Vol 35/2, pp. 193· 0 citations· 17 references
Abstract
The article presents an empirical study on the laryngeal pattern of English obstruents in ‘voiceless’ obstruent clusters (VOCs) in light of Szigetvári’s (2020) *FortisFortis (*FF) phonotactic claim, which posits that adjacent fortis obstruents are prohibited within morphemes due to articulatory constraints. Using acoustic data from our target words: absolute, rhapsody, and knapsack gathered via YouGlish (n.d.), we analyze the correlates of aspiration, segment durations, various vowel ratios, and voicing facts in Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2025), in order to test the validity of the *FF hypothesis. Rigorous statistical analysis reveals that the VOC of rhapsody patterns with that of absolute, indicating phonological /bs/, rather than /ps/. Our findings provide support for the *FF constraint and suggest that English transcription conventions sometimes obscure phonological reality.
Varieties of English differ in (i) the amount of aspiration/voicing in plosives, traditionally measured in Voice Onset Time (VOT), and (ii) the degree of vowel clipping before fortis consonants (the Voicing Effect). The two seem to correlate with each other, with a possible functional explanation, but they also interac...
Katalin Balogné Bérces, Erika Sajtós· Anglica. An International Jo...· 0 citations
/tr/ onset clusters in Polish and English show different phonetic realizations. Contra previous accounts locating the cause for this in a different gestural timing or a different phonological representation, we propose the two languages employ different perceptual cues necessary for the perception of consonants in lang...
S. Hamann, R. Święciński· Anglica. An International Jo...· 0 citations
American English is well-known for optional /t d/ deletion in clusters, as in best [bes] man, kept [khep] going or whipped [wɪp] butter. However, research shows that even in the absence of an acoustic trace of /t d/, articulatory gestures related to the alveolar constriction are still there, although they may be of a s...
Karolina Broś· Anglica. An International Jo...· 0 citations
This paper re-examines the phonological status of English /s/+stop sequences (/sp, st, sk/) within the framework of Precedence-free Phonology (PfP). While these sequences are traditionally analysed as consonant sequences, they exhibit phonotactic properties that distinguish them from other sC combinations, including th...
K. Nasukawa· Anglica. An International Jo...· 0 citations
This study reanalyzes the acoustic data from the author’s doctoral dissertation, examining whether the acoustic endpoint of English word-final /l/-velarization varies with the frontness of the preceding vowel. The original study observed that /l/ following front vowels (/i:, e, eɪ/) converges toward a schwa-like region...
Haeyoung Lee· Phonetics and Speech Science...· 0 citations
This study investigated the interaction between obstruent features and tonal realisation in Ekegusii, a Bantu language spoken predominantly in south-western Kenya. The study was guided by Grounded Optimality Theory, which facilitated the interpretation of tonal patterns in relation to the articulatory, acoustic, and ph...
Linet Bichang'a Nyaboga, Peter Nyansera Otieno, E. G. Mecha· East African Journal of Arts...· 0 citations
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