SCHWA VOCALIZATION IN THE REALIZATION OF /r/

Robert Vago1 & Mária Gósy2
1Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York; 2Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

ID 1080
[full paper]

The realization of the phoneme /r/ is commonly identified in terms of trills, taps, approximants, fricatives, vowels, and devoicing. An experimental investigation in Hungarian revealed a heretofore not discussed variant: [r] with a schwa on-vocalization ([ər]) or off-vocalization ([rə]). In Cr clusters the occurrence of schwa was more frequent in homorganic than in heterorganic clusters, while in the case of rC clusters the occurrence of schwa was more frequent in heterorganic than in homorganic clusters. The [ər] realization was found before vowels (onset position), [rə] before consonants or word finally (coda position). These facts are explained on the basis of articulatory / aerodynamic principles.