Answers are grounded in this paper and cite their sources.
Investigates how accent and utterance boundary affect consonant weakening in German, suggesting implications for speech technology.
Understanding the complex interaction of prosodic factors in segmental weakening is essential for advancing both theoretical phonetics and practical applications in speech technology. This study examines how lexical stress and utterance-final position jointly influence the weakening of word-final /t/ in German. Using a carefully designed set of stimulus sentences, we recorded native speakers’ productions and performed detailed acoustic analyses of the /t/ consonant. Our results reveal that /t/ weakening is significantly stronger in unstressed syllables and at utterance boundaries, demonstrating a nuanced interplay between prosodic prominence and segmental reduction. These findings deepen our understanding of phonetic variability and highlight the importance of prosodic context in shaping consonant articulation. Furthermore, the results offer valuable insights for improving speech synthesis and recognition systems by incorporating prosodic effects to enhance naturalness and accuracy. [This research was conducted while the author was a visiting researcher at the Institute for Phonetics & Speech Processing, LMU Munich.] [Work supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant No. 22K13179.]
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Kasuya et al. (2025) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 10 related papers. Consider them for comparative context: