Vowel-Related Glottalization in Czech Read Speech:
Russian vs. Native Speakers
Jitka Veroňková — Yana Tolkunova
ABSTRACT:
Glottalization as a significant irregularity of glottal pulsing fulfils a number of linguistic functions and can occur in various contexts. It can also contribute to a foreign accent. This paper examines the rate of vowel-related glottalization in the speech of Russian speakers who are beginning
learners of Czech, comparing their reading of Czech with that of native speakers. In Czech, there
is a relatively high frequency of glottalization and, according to research from the last decade,
glottalization in Russian is more common than is usually assumed, especially at the boundaries of
intonational phrases. The purpose of this study is to determine the similarities and differences in
the distribution of glottalization among native and non-native speakers of Czech, and to examine
the factors that may influence it. The subjects read a short text containing 14 potential positions
where glottalization can occur in the standard pronunciation of native speakers. The resulting
322 tokens were then analysed and rated for glottalization. The analysis was primarily based on
perception and covered two main categories of glottalization: the glottal stop and creaky voice. The
rate of glottalization in individual speakers ranged from 71.4 to 100.0% (native group) and from
25.0 to 72.7% (non-native group). The differences between native and non-native speakers are significant at the level p < 0.05, while the differences between males and females (both within and
across the groups) are not significant. Three different positions (the intonational phrase boundary, the position after a non-syllabic preposition, and the word-internal boundary) are discussed
in detail.
KEY WORDS:
Czech as a foreign language, glottalization, L2, non-syllabic preposition, prefix, pronunciation, prosodic boundary, Russian
1. INTRODUCTION 1
Numerous studies have examined foreign accents in the speech of non-native speakers and their perception by native speakers. This phenomenon affects both the
speaker and the listener and has a direct impact on social interaction (cf. e.g. Derwing — Munro, 2005). A foreign accent and the degree of deviation from native pronunciation are influenced by both the segmental and the prosodic aspects of speech.
At the segmental level, even segments without phonemic status — such as the glottal
stop in Czech — may have such an influence.
Adequate use of glottalization, which subsumes the glottal stop and its categories (see below), can not only help a non-native speaker approximate the speech of
1
The authors wish to thank S. Kresin, and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on
the manuscripts.
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a native speaker, but also enhance communication, since it helps a listener to parcel
a continuum of speech by signalling word boundaries.
Glottalization, as a significant irregularity in periodicity, amplitude or shape of
glottal pulses, fulfils a number of linguistic functions and can occur in various contexts. For example, in German, it occurs in four distinct environments: onset-related
glottalization, plosive-related glottalization, utterance-final glottalization and truncation glottalization2 (Kohler, 1994; 1999). Onset-related glottalization signals the
boundaries of intonational phrases, words or morphemes beginning with vowels,
not only in German (Kohler, 1994; Rodgers, 1999), but also in English (Dilley — Shattuck-Hufnagel, 1995; Bissiri et al., 2011), Czech (Hála, 1967; Palková, 1997) and other
languages.
Redi and Shattuck-Hufnagel (2001) have proposed a detailed categorization of
glottalization. In addition to the glottal stop, they distinguish the so-called creaky
voice3 (irregularity in the periodicity of glottal pulses), the creak (sustained low F0
with almost complete alleviation), and two further categories.
Similarly, in a study examining the acoustic properties of glottalization in front of
the Czech conjunction a, Skarnitzl (2004b) distinguishes two main categories: (a) glottal stop and (b) creaky voice and creak (addressed in the study as subcategories).
Other studies have examined influences that support or limit the presence of
glottalization and the types of occurrence. They have addressed prosodic structure,
prominence, speech rate, speech style and precision of pronunciation, the segmental
context (e.g. the quality of surrounding vowels and the voicing of the consonants
involved in glottalization), dialectal differences and differences across genders
(cf. Priestly, 1976; Kohler, 1994; Dilley — Shattuck-Hufnagel, 1995; for Czech Hála,
19674; Skarnitzl, 2004b; Pavelková, 2001). These studies have confirmed that there is
significant inter- and intra-speaker variability in glottalization. For example, in an
experiment based on American English, professional newsreaders showed a range of
glottalization from 13% to 34%, while non-professional readers ranged “from less than
1% to 29%” (Dilley — Shattuck-Hufnagel, 1995, p. 587).
Hála (1955) was among the first to point out that the use of glottalization in Czech
is individual. Volín (2012) presents quantitative data: in his study, glottalization rates
for female professional newscasters ranged from 93.5% to 100.0%, and for male speakers from 65.5% to 98.9%. In the semi-spontaneous speech of non-professional speakers it ranged from 45.5% to 79.5% in the female group and from 24.6% to 54.7% in the
male group.
Glottalization has also been the subject of cross linguistic studies and studies of
second language acquisition. A number of studies have been devoted to glottalization in the speech of non-native speakers of English (e.g. German speakers: Bissiri —
2
3
4
It is the tensing of phonation at utterance breaks in medial prosodic phrases “where the
vocal folds are adducted and where glottalization, therefore, alternates with a glottal stop”
(Kohler, 1999).
In their terminology, “aperiodicity”.
Hála (1955) discussed these factors already in 1955. In the revised edition of this handbook
(Hála, 1967) he also examined the enhanced use of glottalization in emotional speech.
JITKA VEROňKOVá — YANA TOLKUNOVA
95
Kraljevski — Hoffmann, 2013; Polish speakers: Balas, 2011; Schwartz, 2012); Czech
speakers glottalize more often compared to British native speakers and glottalization
in Czech is less influenced by phrase boundaries (Bissiri — Volín, 2010).
This paper focuses on speech production, examining the rate of vowel-related
glottalization in the speech of Russian speakers who are beginning learners of Czech,
comparing their reading of Czech with that of native speakers. An understanding of
glottalization tendencies in non-native speakers can further our understanding of
the process of L2 acquisition, and in particular the degree to which it is influenced by
the sound patterns of the native tongue. Therefore, findings based on the comparison
of glottalization in non-native Russian speakers of Czech and native Czech speakers have direct pedagogical applications. The appropriate use of glottalization can
weaken a foreign accent and also decrease the impact of errors by Russian speakers
that make their speech less comprehensible (Ramasheuskaya, 2008; Romaševská —
Veroňková, in print), enhancing their ability to communicate in Czech.
In Czech, glottalization as a boundary signal occurs before a vowel at the beginning
of a word, at the (strong) morphological boundary following a prefix, or in the middle
of a compound word (Hála, 1967; Palková, 1997). Since glottalization as a boundary
signal supports the comprehensibility of speech in Czech, its use is recommended in
some specific styles of speech, in particular segmental surroundings, etc. (Palková,
1997; Hůrková, 1995). After an unvoiced non-syllabic preposition, it is only the glottalized vowel-onset that is considered canonical (Hála, 1967; Palková, 1997).
Czech can be classified among languages with relatively frequent glottalization.
Compare, for example, the rates of glottalization in the speech of professional speakers of American English (Dilley — Shattuck-Hufnagel, 1995) and of Czech (Volín,
2012), as presented above. It has traditionally been claimed that glottalization is more
common in the Bohemian part of the Czech Republic than in Moravia (Hála, 1967;
Palková, 1997; Davidová et al., 1997; Bogoczová et al., 2000), though sufficient objective data are not available.
In general, glottalization is not as common in Russian as it is in Czech. However,
according to research from the last decade, glottalization is not unusual in Russian,
especially at boundaries of intonational phrases (Krivnova, 2002; 2005; Krivnova —
Andreeva, 2007). Krivnova offers an overview of various linguists’ opinions on the
usage of glottalization in Russian (Krivnova, 2005; Krivnova — Andreeva, 2007).
Even at the beginning of the 20th century, N. N. Durnovo stated that the glottal stop
is “quite typical” for Russian literary pronunciation: “[Glottalization] starts words
with an initial vowel at the beginning of speech and after vowels; in the middle of
speech after consonants of a previous word a laryngeal stop does not occur” (as cited
in Krivnova, 2005, p. 547).
However, this statement is in contradiction with later findings which claim that
glottalization is very limited in Russian. According to A. A. Reformatsky, glottalization “may appear only when a preposition ending with a consonant is artificially
separated from a noun with initial vowel: k [Ɂ]otcu”5 (as cited in Krivnova, 2005,
p. 548). S. S. Vysotsky observed that the glottal stop is often “found when there is
5
к [Ɂ]отцу [k Ɂɐtt͡su].
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sandhi of a hard consonant with the following [i], thanks to which there can appear
prosodic variations of such word forms as vo[ty]menno and vo[tɁ]imenno”6 (as cited in
Krivnova, 2005, p. 548). Krivnova (2005, p. 548) claims that in this case the glottal stop
functions as “a word boundary marker and emphatic intensification of a word”. Similarly Kniazev and Moisejeva claim that the glottal stop is “most common after a final hard consonant of the previous word before initial [i] of the following word” (as
cited in Krivnova, 2005, p. 548). Krivnova (2005, p. 548) concludes that there are two
main functions of the glottal stop in Russian: “[I]t blocks resyllabification of sounds
at word boundaries and their coarticualation.” I. G. Dobrodomov points out that the
glottal stop at a morpheme juncture “distinguishes some minimal word pairs, such as
suženyj — s[Ɂ]uženyj, podaročnyj — pod[Ɂ]aročnyj”7 (as cited in Krivnova, 2005, p. 548).
In both of the languages examined in this study, vowel-related glottalization may
include not only the canonical glottal stop, but also other phenomena related to glottalization such as creaky voice (Kohler, 1994; Redi — Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2001; for
Czech Skarnitzl, 2004b; for Russian Krivnova, 2002; Krivnova — Andreeva, 2007).
Krivnova (2005) points out that Kniazev and Moisejeva were the first who stated that
apart from the glottal stop, creaky voice can also be a realization of glottalization in
Russian.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1 REcORDINGS
A special text for reading was prepared for the purpose of the experiment (a short
story of 40 words, 76 syllables). The text is a slightly emotional fictional story containing both narration and dialogue:8
Náš Ivan se s údivem podíval z okna: „Neuvěřitelné! Jsem v Americe.“ Za osm dnů
přijede ONA, dívka jeho snů, ale on ještě neudělal nic, nekoupil nábytek, ani neuklidil v garáži. Byl však bez obav. K Aleně cítil velkou lásku.
In English:
[Our] Ivan looked out of the window, thinking. “Unbelievable! I am in America!”
SHE, the girl of his dreams, was coming in eight days, but he hadn’t got anything
ready. He hadn’t bought any furniture or cleaned up the garage. But he wasn’t
worried. He was madly in love with Alena.
The text contained 14 potential positions where onset-related glottalization could oc6
7
8
вo[ты]мeннo [vɐtɨmʲen͡nə], вo[тɁ]имeннo [vɐtɁimʲen͡nə].
сужeный [sʊʐenɨj] — с[Ɂ]ужeный [sɁʊʐenɨj], пoдaрoчный [pɐdarətɕ͡ nɨj] — пoд[Ɂ]арoчный
[pɐtɁarətɕ͡ nɨj].
The emotional mode was also supported graphically by the use of capital letters (in one
word) and an exclamation mark (in a one-word sentence).
JITKA VEROňKOVá — YANA TOLKUNOVA
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cur in standard Czech pronunciation. It included diverse segmental contexts (vowel,
voiced/unvoiced consonant) and took into account the position of stress and the influence of phrasal units.
The text was read by two groups of non-professional speakers: non-native speakers of Czech whose first language is Russian (group RU) and native speakers of Czech
(group CZ).
In the RU group there were 12 students (6 males, 6 females) attending a language
school in Prague, aged 17–19 years. They had been in the Czech Republic for two
months and were beginning speakers of Czech. The recordings of the RU were recorded in the classroom individually and directly to a PC, using an external microphone. (22 500 Hz, 16-bit resolution).
In the CZ group there were 11 students (4 males, 7 females) majoring in phonetics
at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague. Their average age was twenty. All
of them either came from the Bohemian part of the Czech Republic or they had lived
in Bohemia for almost all of their school years. The recordings of the CZ were made
in a recording booth (32 000 Hz, 16-bit resolution).
The speakers were instructed to read the text naturally, adequately to its mode.
2.2 ANALYSIS
The presence of glottalization was determined by perceptual analysis according to
which a significantly salient impression of a glottal gesture had to be present, and
once this had been established, the degree of glottalization was then rated. The decision regarding the presence of glottalization was based primarily on the authors’
perception. Subsequently, the acoustic representation of glottalization was examined with the aid of oscilograms and spectrograms (software Praat 5.3.64; Boersma —
Weenink, 2005).
The articulation of a glottal stop is characterized by the complete closure of the
vocal folds and a sudden release with one or two irregular pulses in the waveform.
This canonical form could be preceded by one or two pulses linked to the previous
segment, the so called barbell glottal stop (Skarnitzl, 2004a; 2004b; Palková et al.,
2004). Following Skarnitzl (2004a; 2004b) and his detailed description of the subtypes of creak/creaky voice, the period-to-period irregularity and lowering of F0
was checked. Only the presence or absence of glottalization was registered: at this
point, further categorization based on acoustic properties was not the objective.
Some of the less strident instances and other interesting cases will be discussed in
Section 3.2.
3. RESULTS
In total, 322 tokens were analyzed, out of which 23 were excluded because of various
dysfluencies and repetitions. Unsurprisingly, many more tokens were excluded from
the non-native recordings (18 excluded items): in their speech, six Russian speakers
made two or more errors in their reading of the targeted tokens. Some dysfluencies
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also occurred in the recordings of the native speakers.
The CZ group did not experience any difficulties pronouncing individual targeted
items: their errors were accidental. In the case of the RU group, however, one of the
items, with a non-syllabic preposition, caused difficulties to seven speakers. We will
return to this matter in Section 3.2.
Altogether, 299 tokens were isolated for further analysis: 150 from the RU group,
and 149 from the CZ group.
3.1 RATE OF GLOTTALIZATION: SPEAKERS
With respect to the purpose of the study, two major hypotheses were stated. They focus on two factors: the native language of the speakers and their gender.
(a) Influence of the native language:
H0: There is no difference in the frequency of glottalization between the RU and
CZ groups.
H1: There is a difference in the frequency of glottalization between the RU and CZ
groups.
Corollary to H1: The frequency of glottalization is higher in the CZ group.
This hypothesis (a) was tested both on the entire RU and CZ groups and also separately for all males and all females.
(b) Influence of gender:
H0: There is no difference in the frequency of glottalization between males and
females.
H1: There is a difference in the frequency of glottalization between males and females.
Corollary to H1: The frequency of glottalization is higher in the group of females.
According to the findings of Volín (2012), Czech females glottalize significantly
more often than males (see the data above in Part 1); similar data have been found
for Russian by Krivnova (2002).
This hypothesis (b) was tested for all speakers regardless of their mother tongue and
also separately for RU and CZ groups.
The significance of the difference was verified by a t-test at the level p < 0.05.
Table 1 shows the rate of glottalization for individual speakers with regard to their
native language and gender.
Ad (a): The frequency of glottalization ranged from 25.0% to 72.7% within the
RU group (the mean is 48.2%, with a standard deviation of 14.3%) and from 71.4% to
100.0% within the CZ group (the mean is 86.6%, with a standard deviation of 10.3%),
see Table 1. The greater degree of inter-speaker variability conforms to previous studies (see Part 1). The difference between the RU and CZ group is significant at the level
p < 0.05 (p = 0.00) (see Graph 1). The differences are also significant for groups homogenous in gender: the significance was confirmed for the difference between Russian
JITKA VEROňKOVá — YANA TOLKUNOVA
Speaker
M1
M2
M3
male
M4
M5
M6
F1
F2
F3
female
F4
F5
F6
Sum
Mean
SD
Russian
N
g
12
3
13
6
12
6
14
7
14
7
13
7
12
3
14
5
10
5
13
7
12
8
11
8
150
99
Czech
g in %
25.0
46.2
50.0
50.0
50.0
53.8
25.0
35.7
50.0
53.8
66.7
72.7
72
Speaker
M1
M2
M3
M4
N
14
13
14
14
g
10
12
14
14
g in %
71.4
92.3
100.0
100.0
F1
F2
F3
F4
F5
F6
F7
12
14
14
14
14
14
12
149
9
11
11
12
12
12
12
129
75.0
78.6
78.6
85.7
85.7
85.7
100.0
48.2
14.3
86.6
10.3
table 1: Rate of glottalization according to the speakers’ native language and gender. N — number of
potential positions of glottalization, g — rate of glottalization, SD — standard deviation.
graph 1: Rate of glottalization: Native language. RU — Russian group, CZ — Czech group.
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graph 2: Rate of glottalization: Native language for groups homogenous in gender. RU — Russian
group, CZ — Czech group.
and Czech males (p = 0.00) and between Russian and Czech females (p = 0.00) (see
Graph 2).
Our data confirm H1 for both factors: the rate of glottalization is higher in Czech
speakers regardless of gender, and also when gender is taken into account. This finding is in accordance with our expectations.
Ad (b): The frequency of glottalization ranged from 25.0% to 100.0% in the speech
of both males and females (the difference between males and females is not significant (p = 0.63; see Graph 3). There is also no significant difference between males and
females within the RU and CZ groups taken separately (p = 0.58 and 0.32 respectively;
see Graph 2). These results indicate that it is not possible to refuse H0, in which case
these findings do not correspond with those of previous studies (see Part 1).
This could perhaps be explained by the limited size of the corpus. However, the
Czech data correspond with the findings of a parallel experiment analysing the reading of a text by native Czech students: in this experiment, the frequency of glottalization was very high regardless of gender (Veroňková, unpublished). We can hypothesize that the most important factors influencing the rate of glottalization in this type
of text are the high degree of preparedness (read text) and the effort of speakers to
employ higher style and precise pronunciation that, in a such short text, can be easily
kept under control throughout the course of the reading.
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3.2 RATE OF GLOTTALIZATION: INFLUENcE OF POSITION
The global results can cover the inner variability and therefore the usage of glottalization in three different positions was further inspected: (a) intonational phrase
boundary, (b) non-syllabic preposition + onset-vowel word and (c) word-internal
boundary. These positions were chosen deliberately, because the instances that we
studied were on a different level of the phonological hierarchy and therefore the
relations between the units displayed varying degrees of closeness in each case (see
Table 2).
IP (pause+)
IP (pause−)
PREP*
W
Sum
%
g+
12
4
11 + 2
0
29
31.9
Russian
g−
6
0
10 + 14
32
30
68.1
N
18
4
37
32
91
100.0
g+
7
12
42 + 0
17
78
82.1
Czech
g−
1
1
0+0
15
17
17.9
N
8
13
42
32
95
100.0
table 2: Rate of glottalization in various positions. IP — intonational phrase (with/without previous pause), PREP — non-syllabic preposition and vowel-onset noun, W — word-internal boundary,
g+/− presence of glottalization, g− — absence of glottalization, N — number of occurrences. * The sum
in the cells shows the number of realizations according to the voicing of the prepositions: unvoiced consonant + voiced consonant pronunciation.
Even the data from the three selected positions confirm the higher overall frequency
of glottalization in Czech speakers in comparison to Russian speakers that was found
in the whole set (cf. Table 1). In the RU group, glottalization is present at a rate of
31.9%, whereas in the CZ group the rate is 82.1%. The data confirm that glottalization
occurs in various ways depending on the type of position.
Ad (a): A prosodic boundary can be signalled by a pause (both silent and filled),
a specific melodic contour and a significant change in speech rate (Daneš, 1957;
Palková, 1997; 2006; Janoušková, 2008). There are two such examples in the text:
(1)9 … dívka jeho snů // ale on ještě neudělal nic (in English: … the girl of his dreams,
but he has not done anything) (5 occurrences); (2) … nekoupil nábytek // ani neuklidil
v garáži (in English: ... he has not bought any furniture, nor has he cleaned up the
garage).
The realizations with and without a previous pause (IP pause+ / pause−) were
distinguished (see Table 2); in general, glottalization prevailed at the intonational
phrase boundary in both languages. In the RU group the rate is 16/22 (72.7%), and in
the CZ group it is 19/21 (90.5%). The data confirm that the tendency to glottalize at the
intonational phrase boundary is strong and that glottalization can function as a prosodic boundary marker. With the exception of one Czech speaker, none of the sub9
The intonation phrase boundary is marked with //.
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jects directly linked the neighbouring segments: they used either glottalization (with
or without a pause) or a pause without glottalization. The latter case appeared more
often in our material than expected. In the Russian group, one third of realizations
after a preceding pause were not glottalized, with the duration of pauses exceeding
290 ms. In the Czech data there was only one occurrence of this type of pronunciation. Although glottalization after a pause is supposed to be natural, literature also
shows evidence of the absence of glottalization. For example, Kohler (1994) detected
15% of non-glottalized pronunciation in reading by Germans. In an experiment on
French conducted by C. Fougeron (2001), one speaker (S1) glottalized in 100% of all
instances after a pause, but another one (S2) did so in only 20% of cases, although the
latter had a 75% glottalization rate in initial-phrase boundaries, nevertheless without
previous pausing.
It is possible that the pronunciation could have been influenced by the tested
samples themselves e.g. their syntactic structure, prosodic properties, the segmental level, and so on. The absence of glottalization was detected namely in the expression (1). The speech habits of the individual speakers in connection with the tendency
or non-tendency for glottalization in their mother tongue can also play a role.
Ad (b): The combination of a non-syllabic preposition and a vowel-initial word
does graphically look like two words, but their relationship is very close in sound.
In Czech language there are 4 such prepositions, in written form: k (in English ‘to’),
s (‘with’), v (‘in’) and z (‘from’). They can be pronounced voiced or unvoiced depending on the following sound context. In a sequence with a following glottal stop (an
unvoiced segment), the voiced prepositions lose their voicing and change to the
unvoiced counterparts: v > [f ] and z > [s]. In casual speech, an unvoiced consonant followed by a vowel without glottalization can also occur (Hála, 1967) and especially in the Moravian part of the Czech Republic we often find pronunciation
without glottalization, but with a voiced realization of the consonant k > [g] and
s > [z] (Palková, 1997; Davidová et al., 1997; Bogoczová et al., 2000; Balhar et al., 2005,
pp. 406–409). The fourth variant, which is the combination of voiced obstruent +
glottal stop + vowel, e.g. [z Ɂvowel] is not discussed in Czech handbooks on account
of being unnatural to Czech speakers, but it is a pronunciation we can find in the
speech of non-native speakers. There was only one example for each preposition in
the recorded text. Table 2 shows the rate of glottalization with regard to the voicing
of the preposition and Table 3 shows the glottalization separately for each tested
preposition.
In this combination a substantial difference between RU and CZ groups may be
observed. The Czechs pronounced it quite uniformly (42/42, 100.0%) with glottalization and an unvoiced preceding consonant (e.g. canonically). In the Russian group
glottalization appeared only in 13/37 samples (35.1%) (11× also with an unvoiced consonant, but 2× with a voiced consonant). This finding corresponds with the observations of A. A. Reformatsky (see Part 1) about the unnaturalness of glottalization in
this combination in Russian, and illustrates the transfer of sound patterns from the
mother tongue to the target language.
JITKA VEROňKOVá — YANA TOLKUNOVA
103
Expresunvoiced
unvoiced voiced
voiced
sion
g+ (canonical)
g−
g−
g−
(3) k Aleně
2 [k a] 10 [g a] 0 [g Ɂa] 0
[k Ɂalɛɲɛ]
(4) s údivem
Sum
12
[s ɁuːɈɪvɛm]
5 [s u:]
0 [z u:]
0 [z Ɂuː] 0
5
0 [f a]
0 [v a]
9 [v Ɂa] 0
9
[s Ɂokna]
4 [s o]
0 [z o]
5 [z Ɂo] 2
11
(5) v Americe [f Ɂamɛrɪcɛ]
(6) z okna
Sum in Russian
11
10
14
2
in English
k Alёne
to Alena
with astos udivlеniem
nishment
v Amerikе
in America
from
iz okna
a window
37
table 3: Non-syllabic preposition + onset related vowel: variants of pronunciation and number of occurrences in Russian speakers. g+/− presence of glottalization, g− — absence of glottalization. In the Russian
translation the canonical word stress is underlined.
The individual samples share some common properties, but partly also demonstrate
a certain variability.
The expression (5) v Americe was pronounced with the voiced consonant followed
directly by vowel [v a-], i.e. without glottalization. in all the occurrences. The expression (3) k Aleně was pronounced almost consistently without glottalization with the
unvoiced consonant preserved [k a-]. In two instances the realization corresponded
to the Czech group [k Ɂa-], however in one of the samples the glottalization was perceptually weak. In the pronunciation of these two expressions, the preservation of
a voiced consonant (v Americe) and a voiceless consonant (k Aleně) probably influenced by the orthographic form and the pronunciation in mother tongue. The expression (4) s údivem is one which contained a high number of dysfluencies (of various
types) so that more than half of the samples (7/12) had to be excluded. The rest of the
samples were realized consistently, same as in the Czech group: unvoiced consonant
and glottalization. The expression (6) z okna showed the highest variability: it was
pronounced in three different ways in the RU group. Two of the variants were represented by a similar number of occurrences: a voiced consonant linked directly to the
next vowel [z o-] (5 occurrences from 11) and the realization with glottalization and
the preceding unvoiced consonant (the canonical one) [s Ɂo-] (4 occurrences). The
non-native realization, namely the combination of a voiced consonant followed by
glottalization, as mentioned above, was found twice and in both instances it was the
case of this expression [z Ɂo-].10
Glottalization is not the only phenomenon functioning as a boundary marker in
Czech. Another one is word stress, which is –contrary to free word stress in Russian — fixed on the first syllable of a word. The incorrect position of word stress,
quantity of vowels and their full pronunciation are among the most prevalent errors
produced by Russians speaking Czech (Ramasheuskaya, 2008). We were interested in
the question of whether there could be some relationship between glottalization and
the position of word stress in the analysed samples.
10
Apart from the situation when the speaker makes a (short) pause after the preposition,
we hypothesize that this pronounciation appears in informed speakers who are aware of
glottalization in Czech, but at the same time do not apply devoicing to the preposition.
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In the analysed samples of the expression v Americe, the word stress occurred
predominantly on the first syllable (in 7/9). In the Russian counterpart of this expression, the word stress is canonically on the second syllable; this pronunciation
occurred twice (in 2/9) in our material. It would be possible to conclude that although
the Russians did not acquire the segmental pattern of this expression, they acquired
its prosodic pattern. Contrary to this, in the occurrences of the expression k Aleně,
the word stress most often occurred on the second syllable (in 11/12), analogically
to the canonical Russian pronunciation. (The one speaker who used glottalization
did put the word stress to the first syllable.) The fluent pronunciation of the expression s údivem was consistent not only concerning glottalization but also with word
stress on the first syllable as in the Czech samples (in 5/5). Similarly, the samples of
the expression z okna were stressed on the first syllable regardless of glottalization
(in 11/11). Although the canonical Russian counterparts of the later two expressions
do not have stress on the initial syllable, the speakers placed word stress on the first
syllable in Czech.
It seems that the position of the word stress was learnt either earlier or simultaneously with glottalization.11 Conversely, we can say that if pronunciation with glottalization was employed, the form was also pronounced correctly with regard to the
position of word stress.12
Ad (c): The third potential position of glottalization lies on a word-internal boundary, i.e. within a word. Three examples were tested and all of them contain a strong
morphological boundary due to the presence of the negative prefix ne- (English: ‘un-’
or ‘non-’) (see the Table 2, row W).
For this combination there is once again a significant difference between the RU
and CZ groups, but there is a certain tendency towards lower rates of glottalization
in both groups in comparison to the sequence with the non-syllabic preposition.
While approximately one third of the latter combination was glottalized in the RU
group, none of the Russian speakers used glottalization on the internal word boundary (0/32). The CZ group shifts from consistent glottalization after the non-syllabic
preposition to a word-internal glottalization rate of 53.1% (17/32).
Three expressions were tested: an adjective (7) neuvěřitelné, and two verb forms
(8) neudělal, (9) neuklidil (see Table 4).13 In our material there is no difference in the
rate of glottalization among the analysed expressions.
In future experiments it would be worth using a larger, expanded sample and
evaluating the consistency of individual speakers. In our material on the one hand
there were two speakers who did not glottalize in any of the items, and on the other
hand four speakers used glottalization in at least two words.
11
12
13
We deliberately speak only of the position, i.e. the quantity and quality of vowels aside.
Exercises to practice glottalization in vowel-onset (e.g. after non-syllabic preposition) in
L2 students could support the correct position of word stress in Czech, because both are
focused on the first syllable of a word.
In all of the tested samples, the following word root begins with a vowel [u], so the same
combination of vowels eu is present.
JITKA VEROňKOVá — YANA TOLKUNOVA
(7)
(8)
(9)
Expression
neuvěřitelné
neudělal
neuklidil
g+
7
6
4
g−
4
5
6
105
Sum
11
11
10
in Russian
neverojatno
ne sdelal
ne ubral
in English
unbelievable
he has not done
he has not cleaned
table 4: Rate of glottalization onthe internal boundary after the prefix ne- in the Czech group. g — glottalization, V — vowel. In the Russian translation word stress is underlined.
4. CONCLUSION
Results from the experiment measuring the rate of onset-vowel glottalization show
that the difference between beginner Russian learners of Czech and the native
speakers was significant in that the native speakers glottalized more. Conversely,
the differences in rate of glottalization between men and women were not significant; neither in the whole sample, nor within the homogeneous language groups.
Both groups tend to glottalize in the phrase-initial position, although there were
samples without glottalization after a pause in the RU group. In general, it was confirmed that glottalization functions as the initial phrase boundary marker. In the
Russian group, the rate of glottalization corresponds to the strength of the phrase
boundary — the deeper the boundary, the higher the rate of glottalization: phrase
boundary > non-syllabic preposition + onset-vowel > word-internal boundary. For
the Czech group it rose in this sequence: phrase boundary / non-syllabic preposition + onset-vowel > internal word boundary. While the Czechs glottalized all the
onset-vowels after non-syllabic prepositions, in the Russian group it was just one
third. The glottalization rate on the word-internal boundary was lower than in the
previous context. In the Czech group, glottalization occurred in about a half of the
samples, in the Russian group glottalization was not detected at all. For the position
of word stress in combination with a non-syllabic preposition in Russian speakers,
the data show that the position of word stress is learnt earlier than glottalization or
together with glottalization.
The results proved that glottalization is a principal topic of research and it is
worth studying further, in the context of both learner and native Czech. Current research is focused on beginner Russian learners of Czech and their glottalization after
non-syllabic prepositions (Tolkunova, 2015). More insights into the learning process
of glottalization patterns could be gained by analysis of glottalization in groups of
speakers with different language proficiency levels and first languages. It would be
advidable to obtain and analyze a balanced sample for the native group as well, concentrating on the dialect of speakers.
The tendencies suggested by these results certainly need to be verified on a larger
sample of speakers as well as on spontaneous speech (not read); it is also crucial
to bear in mind factors both of linguistic (sound context, prosodic and morphologic boundary, etc.) and non-linguistic (gender, dialect, communication situation)
nature.
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SUMMARY:
Výskyt rázu před vokálem v českých čtených textech: ruskojazyční vs. rodilí mluvčí. Příspěvek přináší výsledky dílčí sondy, která zkoumala výskyt rázu před vokálem v českých projevech
ruskojazyčných mluvčích ve srovnání s rodilými mluvčími. Termín ráz je zde použit jako souhrnné
pojmenování pro základní glotalizační jevy (Palková et al., 2004). Ráz bývá v češtině realizován nejčastěji jako hlasivková explozíva (glottal stop) a jako tzv. třepená fonace (creaky voice) (Skarnitzl,
2004b). Výzkumným materiálem byly nahrávky krátkého čteného textu (40 slov, 76 slabik), který
obsahoval 14 potenciálních pozic pro výskyt rázu před vokálem. Skupinu respondentů tvořilo 12 nerodilých mluvčích češtiny na úrovni začátečníků s mateřštinou ruštinou (RU; 6 mužů a 6 žen) a 11 rodilých mluvčích (CZ; 4 muži a 7 žen). Po vyloučení vzorků s neplynulostmi bylo celkem analyzováno
299 vzorků. Základem byla poslechová analýza s následným ověřením akustické reprezentace. Z pohledu individuálních mluvčích se výskyt rázu pohybuje v ruské skupině od 25,0 % do 72,7 %, v české
skupině od 71,4 % do 100,0 %. Rozdíl mezi skupinou nerodilých a rodilých mluvčích je statisticky
významný na hladině 0,05 (p = 0,00), v souladu s očekáváním rodilí mluvčí užívají rázu více. Z hlediska pohlaví se oproti předchozímu výzkumu (Volín, 2012) neprokázal rozdíl mezi skupinou mužů
a skupinou žen, a to ani celkově, ani v rámci jazykově homogenní skupiny. Domníváme se, že mezi
hlavní příčiny patří typ textu a jeho délka (krátký čtený text) a snaha mluvčích (bez ohledu na pohlaví) o vyšší styl a přesnou výslovnost. Četnost rázu vykazuje u jednotlivých pozic velkou variabilitu. Podrobněji byly analyzovány tři typy pozic: (a) v iniciální pozici promluvového úseku, tj. na
prozodickém předělu, (b) ve spojení jednoslabičné předložky a následujícího substantiva a (c) na
morfologickém švu uvnitř slova. Ad (a): Na hranici promluvového úseku převažuje realizace s rázem (skupina RU 16 případů z 22, tj. 72,7 %, skupina CZ 19 případů z 21, tj. 90,5 %) a potvrzuje se tak,
že ráz funguje jako signál prozodické hranice. Při rozlišení realizace s předchozí pauzou a bez ní se
ukázalo, že ve skupině RU byla u jedné ze dvou analyzovaných pozic třetina výskytů po pauze realizována bez glotalizace (6 z 18) (srov. Kohler, 1994; Fougeron, 2001). Ad (b): Realizace kombinace
s neslabičnou předložkou se mezi rodilými a nerodilými mluvčími lišily. U českých mluvčích byla
realizace konzistentní, ve všech případech (42 ze 42, tj. 100,0 %) šlo o kanonickou podobu s rázem
a s předchozí neznělou souhláskou. U ruských mluvčích se glotalizace vyskytovala jen ve 13 případech z 37 (35,1 %), z toho v 11 případech také s předchozím neznělým konsonantem, ve 2 případech
se znělým konsonantem; četnost rázu byla u čtyř analyzovaných pozic/kontextů dosti variabilní.
Další šetření sledovalo možnou spojitost rázu a pozice slovního přízvuku. Ad (c): Glotalizace uvnitř
slova je v obou skupinách nejslabší, její četnost se však liší. U ruských mluvčích se v této pozici nevyskytla glotalizace ani jednou (0/32). U českých mluvčích se objevila přibližně v polovině případů
(17/32, tj. 53,1 %). Výzkum v této oblasti bude užitečné dále rozšiřovat a prohlubovat; navazujícím
experimentem je analýza výskytu rázu po neslabičných předložkách u ruskojazyčných mluvčích
v češtině (viz Tolkunova, 2015).
Jitka Veroňková | Institute of Phonetics, Faculty of Arts, Charles University
<jitka.veronkova@ff.cuni.cz>
Yana Tolkunova | Department of South Slavonic and Balkan Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles
University
<jan4ik.tolk@gmail.com>