Pregledni rad
R-sound in Croatian, German and English language
Aleksandra Ščukanec
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
This article deals with sounds that are recognized as the r-sound, i.e. the class of sounds that are called rhotic sounds. The rhotic sounds are compared in three languages that contain the r-sound --- in Croatian, German and English. The article illustrates that similarities and differences in the descriptions of rhotic sounds in these three languages are not always easily recognizable due to the different traditions as well as in the terminology. Although the Croatian, English and German r-sound is different, when pronunciation variants, especially in non-standard languages (i.e. dialects), are taken into consideration, greater similarities and common pronunciation features are observed. The Croatian r-sound occurs as alveolar trill or tap; the German r-sound is also manifested as trill or tap, and English as glide or tap. In all three language systems the r-sound is therefore to be found as tap, but it's only a pronunciation variant and not the prototypical pronunciation. Both in Croatian and German, the r-sound is found as trill, but it differs very much in these two languages, since it has a different place of articulation and is produced by different articulation organs. In most cases, the German r-sound is uvular, but in specific surroundings it can have vowel features. On the other hand, the Croatian language system contains only the apical alveolar r-sound. The German uvular r, a very common pronunciation variant, can also be found in English, especially in Scottish dialects, but in Croatian the uvular r is considered to be a speech disorder. The pronunciation variants in Croatian and English can be conditioned by the position of the sound in syllables. The greatest number of dialectal variants in the pronunciation of the r-sound can be found in English, and what is specific about Croatian is that the r-sound may form a syllable.
Ključne riječi
phonetics and phonology; r-sound; Croatian; German; English
Hrčak ID:
32039
URI
Datum izdavanja:
29.9.2008.
Posjeta: 4.404 *