Word-initial Glottal Marking in Hungarian as a Function of Articulation Rate and Word Class

Gráczi, Tekla Etelka and Markó, Alexandra (2018) Word-initial Glottal Marking in Hungarian as a Function of Articulation Rate and Word Class. In: CHALLENGES IN ANALYSIS AND PROCESSING OF SPONTANEOUS SPEECH. MTA Nyelvtudományi Intézet, Budapest, pp. 75-98. ISBN 978-963-9074-75-0 (nyomtatott), 978-963-9074-76-7 (online)

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Abstract

The present study’s aim was to analyse the glottal marking of word-initial vowels in two speech styles, reading aloud and spontaneous speech, based on 12 speakers’ Hungarian speech. In earlier studies of other languages (English, German and Polish), it was suggested that among several other factors, speech style, speech rate, vowel quality and word type had an effect on the glottal marking of word-initial vowels. In the Hungarian corpus analysed, speakers produced glottal marking significantly less frequently in spontaneous speech than in reading aloud. Both slower articulatory rate in the “carrier” pause-to-pause interval, and longer vowel duration went hand in hand with glottal marking. All the features of vowel quality were analysed, but only vowel height was found to play some minor role in glottal marking, while backness and rounding did not at all. In reading aloud, low and mid vowels were less frequently glottalized than high ones, while in spontaneous speech, high vowels were less frequently glottally marked than the other ones. The factor of vowel height played a significant role only in this latter speech style. Slower articulation proved to enhance the possibility of glottal marking in word-initial vowels in our study as well, in accordance with our hypothesis. With respect to word type (content vs. function words), our data imply that lexical prominence does not have an effect on the glottal marking of word-initial vowels in Hungarian. Alternatively, it can be supposed that phrase-initial position has a prevalent effect which overrides the effect of word type.

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