Rhotic Sounds in the Slavic Languages

This post-doctoral book provides a comprehensive description of the major allophones of the rhotic phonemes found in thirteen currently spoken Slavic languages. Since trills are said to be susceptible to phonetic change, an attempt is made to determine whether the phonological contexts in which rhotic sounds occur have an impact on their phonetic realisation. Therefore, tokens of the rhotic phonemes /r/, /r?/, /r?/ and /?/ are examined in five vowel-adjacent positions, i.e. word-initial, onset clusters, intervocalic, pre-consonantal coda positions, and world final. In addition, syllabic and obstruentised variants of the trill /r/ and /r?/ are examined in detail with a view to establishing whether rhotics that are not contiguous with a vowel differ from their vowel-adjacent counterparts with respect to their acoustic properties. The results of the analysis point to the conclusion that modern standard Slavic languages should be divided into trilling and non-trilling ones. The acoustic properties of the major allophones are also indicative of the possible future changes that might affect the sounds. REVIEWERS’ COMMENTS: Prof. Katarzyna Dziwirek: The book is an invaluable resource for phoneticians, phonologists and historical linguists. Its simultaneous breadth and detail make it a true treasury of knowledge about rhotic sounds in Slavic languages. Prof. Eduard Werner: The book devotes a considerable amount of space to three languages that have been underrepresented in relevant literature, namely Upper and Lower Sorbian and Kashubian.