engleski

Groove width in Croatian voiced and voiceless postalveolar fricatives

The aim of this investigation is to use a newly available electropalatography (EPG) index to quantify groove width characteristics in Croatian postalveolar fricatives. Six normal adult speakers of Croatian produced 648 nonsense VCV sequences (V: /i/, /a/, /u/ ; C: /􀀶/, /􀀽/). Anterior groove width (AGW), posterior groove width (PGW), intraspeaker and interspeaker variability were quantified. Results show that groove width is gradually narrowing towards the front of the oral cavity. AGW is virtually unaffected by vowel context, while PGW shows less coarticulatory resistance. AGW and PGW characteristics show opposite tendencies in voiced and voiceless fricatives in that AGW is slightly wider in voiceless than in voiced fricative, while voiced fricative is produced with a wider PGW than the voiceless one. The results also show that groove width variability is very low. The importance of groove width characteristics quantification for clinical use is discussed.

electropalatography; postalveolar fricatives; groove width; voicing; Croatian

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