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Pre-fortis shortening in Czech English
Hrychová, Helena ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Pípalová, Renata (referee)
This bachelor thesis examines the role of a phenomenon called pre-fortis shortening in Czech English. This term is used by phoneticians to represent the shortening of vowels before fortis consonants. It is not characteristic only of English, Matthew Chen even suggested that it could be a language-universal phenomenon. In English it is a very significant feature since English vowel duration was proven by various experiments to serve as a cue to the perception of the voicing characteristic of the following consonant. This thesis advances our understanding of pre-fortis shortening in Czech English where vowel duration was hypothesized to correlate with the speaker's proficiency in English. As a result, this work aims to examine the extent to which 20 Czech students divided into two categories depending on their English level (A2, C1) exploit this phenomenon and whether their proficiency has an impact on vowel durations before fortis and lenis consonants. They were recorded while reading 40 English sentences and their vowel durations were compared to those obtained from two native English speakers.
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Relationship between the strength of Czech accent and the duration of vowels before obstruents
Fejlová, Dita ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
This bachelor thesis aims to inspect the presence or absence of a feature called pre- fortis shortening in English spoken by Czechs. The term denotes the shortening of a vowel preceding a voiceless obstruent. This feature is known to appear in various languages like Russian, French, Italian; indeed, Matthew Chen even suggests it is language-universal. In English the feature is very prominent and because it affects speech perception, it is even considered a primary indicator of the voicing of the following obstruent. A study included in this thesis examines the extent to which 12 female speakers of Czech English, sorted into 3 categories according to their proficiency in pronunciation, mark the distinction between words like "bet" and "bed" by vowel shortening. The study does not exploit minimal pairs like these, but vowel-obstruent sequences taken from long read passages of BBC news. The the fortis/lenis character of the final obstruent contained in these sequences is a discerning parameter which always separates the data into two groups, the vowel durations of which are then compared. Statistical analysis of the data showed that contrary to the expectations, speakers with native-like pronunciation were not the ones who displayed the most massive usage of pre-fortis shortening. Possible reasons for...
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Spanish vowels in Czech students' interlanguage
Černikovská, Štěpánka ; Čermák, Petr (advisor) ; Zajícová, Lenka (referee) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
(English) The dissertation explores the vowel system of Czech L3 Spanish, focusing on three facets of its architecture: vowel quality (following SLM by Flege 1995, 1999, 2003), vowel quantity and vocalic sequences between words. Preliminary studies (Čechová 2013, 2014) suggest that there might be some evidence for the Mechanism of Equivalence in Czech L3 Spanish, since the vowel spaces of both languages consist of the same categories, with different phonetic realizations. Hence, the more similar the sounds are, the harder it is to capture the relevant difference, necessary to attain native-like pronunciation. Vowel quantity, being traditionally associated with the phonological feature of length in Czech (Palková 1994), is not present in Spanish, and compensating for that property, some Czech speakers tend to pronounce accented syllables with extraordinarily longer durations. Finally, vowel sequences in Spanish are usually subjetct to resyllabification, whereas Czech prefers glottalization to keep morphemes of words separated. These predictions were tested in 22 university Czech students with advanced level of Spanish (C1-C1). Subsequent analysis revealed consistent inclination towards L1 in terms of vowel quality, in less extent in vowel quantity, and although the prevalecent strategy for majority...
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Production of weak forms of prepositions by non-native speakers of English
Kozáková, Tereza ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Malá, Markéta (referee)
This bachelor thesis aims to reveal and describe to which extent non-native speakers of English from different L1 backgrounds employ weak forms when producing prepositions. The theoretical part focuses on vowel reduction and its importance for the natural rhythm of English. This concept is further explored from the Lingua Franca Core perspective and its approach to teaching vowel reduction. In the practical part, the analysis of a series of recordings is carried out. The recordings were taken from the L2-ARCTIC speech corpus of non-native English (Arabic, Hindi, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese). The purpose of the analysis is to explore whether and how speakers with different L1s reduce vowels in canonically weak forms of prepositions. The focus is placed on the quality and quantity of vowels in said prepositions and their duration with regard to their occurrence in either initial or medial positions. The average vowel duration is then compared to the referential vowel duration in General British. KEY WORDS ELF, prepositions, vowel duration, schwa, vowel reduction, weak forms
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Spanish vowels in Czech students' interlanguage
Černikovská, Štěpánka ; Čermák, Petr (advisor) ; Zajícová, Lenka (referee) ; Skarnitzl, Radek (referee)
(English) The dissertation explores the vowel system of Czech L3 Spanish, focusing on three facets of its architecture: vowel quality (following SLM by Flege 1995, 1999, 2003), vowel quantity and vocalic sequences between words. Preliminary studies (Čechová 2013, 2014) suggest that there might be some evidence for the Mechanism of Equivalence in Czech L3 Spanish, since the vowel spaces of both languages consist of the same categories, with different phonetic realizations. Hence, the more similar the sounds are, the harder it is to capture the relevant difference, necessary to attain native-like pronunciation. Vowel quantity, being traditionally associated with the phonological feature of length in Czech (Palková 1994), is not present in Spanish, and compensating for that property, some Czech speakers tend to pronounce accented syllables with extraordinarily longer durations. Finally, vowel sequences in Spanish are usually subjetct to resyllabification, whereas Czech prefers glottalization to keep morphemes of words separated. These predictions were tested in 22 university Czech students with advanced level of Spanish (C1-C1). Subsequent analysis revealed consistent inclination towards L1 in terms of vowel quality, in less extent in vowel quantity, and although the prevalecent strategy for majority...
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Pre-fortis shortening in Czech English
Hrychová, Helena ; Červinková Poesová, Kristýna (advisor) ; Pípalová, Renata (referee)
This bachelor thesis examines the role of a phenomenon called pre-fortis shortening in Czech English. This term is used by phoneticians to represent the shortening of vowels before fortis consonants. It is not characteristic only of English, Matthew Chen even suggested that it could be a language-universal phenomenon. In English it is a very significant feature since English vowel duration was proven by various experiments to serve as a cue to the perception of the voicing characteristic of the following consonant. This thesis advances our understanding of pre-fortis shortening in Czech English where vowel duration was hypothesized to correlate with the speaker's proficiency in English. As a result, this work aims to examine the extent to which 20 Czech students divided into two categories depending on their English level (A2, C1) exploit this phenomenon and whether their proficiency has an impact on vowel durations before fortis and lenis consonants. They were recorded while reading 40 English sentences and their vowel durations were compared to those obtained from two native English speakers.
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Relationship between the strength of Czech accent and the duration of vowels before obstruents
Fejlová, Dita ; Skarnitzl, Radek (advisor) ; Tichý, Ondřej (referee)
This bachelor thesis aims to inspect the presence or absence of a feature called pre- fortis shortening in English spoken by Czechs. The term denotes the shortening of a vowel preceding a voiceless obstruent. This feature is known to appear in various languages like Russian, French, Italian; indeed, Matthew Chen even suggests it is language-universal. In English the feature is very prominent and because it affects speech perception, it is even considered a primary indicator of the voicing of the following obstruent. A study included in this thesis examines the extent to which 12 female speakers of Czech English, sorted into 3 categories according to their proficiency in pronunciation, mark the distinction between words like "bet" and "bed" by vowel shortening. The study does not exploit minimal pairs like these, but vowel-obstruent sequences taken from long read passages of BBC news. The the fortis/lenis character of the final obstruent contained in these sequences is a discerning parameter which always separates the data into two groups, the vowel durations of which are then compared. Statistical analysis of the data showed that contrary to the expectations, speakers with native-like pronunciation were not the ones who displayed the most massive usage of pre-fortis shortening. Possible reasons for...
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