The specifics of coarticulation in Chinese and Russian syllables with a palatalized consonant

The article discusses the universal and specific acoustic cues manifesting coarticulation in typologically different languages – Russian and Chinese. The study focuses on the dynamics of the second formant (F2) in Russian and Chinese syllables of CV structure with palatalized and palatal consonants and vowels: nonfront vowels for Russian and medial i followed by nonfront vowels for Chinese. The material was obtained from 4 native speakers of standard Russian (2 men, 2 women, aged 18–20) and 4 native speakers (2 men, 2 women, aged 18–20) of standard Chinese – Putonghua. The speakers read the words including syllables with the targeted sounds in contexts similar for both languages from the viewpoint of General Phonetics. Duration and slope of the formant transitions were compared. The data obtained during F2 measurements at the beginning and end of the transition and calculating their difference showed a steeper F2 slope in Chinese syllables compared to Russian syllables. A possible explanation lies in different status of the iphase in the two languages.