High vowel weakening in Turkish

Bibliographic Data

ID22224141
AuthorsElif Esra Sarmış (0000-0003-2175-1498, Bogaziçi University), Stefano Canalis (0000-0001-9584-2953, Bogaziçi University)
Year2021
Volume6
Issue1
Pages5060
Publication date2021-12-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueProceedings of the Workshop on Turkic and Languages in Contact with Turkic (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2641-3485 • E-ISSN: 2641-3485
PublisherLinguistic Society of America (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.3765/ptu.v6i1.5060
OpenAlexW4205751903
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited12

High vowel weakening is a common phenomenon that usually depends on purely phonetic factors. This study aims to present the findings of an experiment we have conducted on a total of 14 native speakers to see if Turkish has high vowel weakening and if yes, to figure out whether it is phonological or phonetic. Our data show a large amount of variation and little correlation between a vowel’s F1 and its duration within the high ([+high], /i, u, y, ɯ/) and non-high ([-high], /a, e, o, ø/) categories in all environments (stressed and unstressed, in open and closed syllables, in all consonantal environments). On the other hand, comparing the duration of [+high] and [-high] vowels reveals that non-high vowels are rarely as short as, or shorter than, high vowels. However, this shortening process is not a purely phonetic phenomenon. What matters for this process to apply is the phonological category of the vowel. All [+high] vowels are shortened, largely irrespective of variation in their F1; conversely, [-high] vowels are not shortened, largely irrespective of variation in their F1

Acoustics · Audiology · Linguistics · Mid vowel · Phenomenon · Physics · Speech recognition · Turkish · Vowel · Computer Science · Linguistics and Cultural Studies · Mathematics · Medicine · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology

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