An acoustic phonetic study of close juncture

Abstract EN

The theoretical and acoustic approach of this research has reached the following conclusions: -Close juncture has a reality that can be described in physical terms.

-Junctural phenomena are differences in the grouping of phonemes into syllables.

-Juncture is remarkably correlated with word boundaries.

-The correlation of juncture with morpheme boundaries is determined by the coincidence of word boundaries with morpheme boundaries.

- There is a potential juncture at word boundaries which may not be realized when uttering the sequence of sounds.

-When there is no phonetic manifestation present, we can say that there is no juncture.

-A given ordered set of phonemes may constitute a bounded sequence.

-Each bounded sequence starts and ends with a marginal allophone.

-Within the hierarchical phonological structure of the language, the bounded sequence appears as a higher- level unit than the phoneme.

-A distribution of a sequence of segmental phonemes between different bounded sequences is possible when the phoneme sequence in question may occur as final and initial sounds as the acoustic analysis of the pair night-rate and nitrate shows; where a medial allophone of l t l in night-rate and in nitrate, the medial allophone of l aI l is followed by the initial allophone of l tr l.

-The acoustic analysis shows that some pairs like aboard and a broad are not differentiated phonetically, although they are different morphologically and lexically as both contain a sequence of a non- final allophone l l followed by an initial allophone of l b l.

-To determine whether a juncture has occurred, two factors must be taken into consideration; the nature of the segmental allophones and the intensity and duration pattern of phonemes.

-Initial voiced stops are considerably longer than initial voiceless stops and the voicing within the voiced stop decreases before the plosive release.

-Initial allophones of fricatives are longer than medial allophones and the intensity within the production of an initial allophone of a continuant increases and it decreases during a final allophone.

-Initial allophones of nasals are usually longer than medial ones and the length of the final nasal depends on the occurrence of a vowel ,i.e.

the nasal is longer after a short vowel.

-Initial l w l is voiced and it is devoiced when it follows an initial stop because of aspiration.

-When l l l occurs medially, it resembles a medial l n l in intensity and duration.

-There is a kind of lengthening concerning final vowels which decays gradually in energy.