Differences in Acoustic Features Between the Standard and the New Variant of Polish /ɕ/

Abstrakt

The paper presents preliminary results of research on differences in selected acoustic features between two variants of the Polish alveolo-palatal voiceless sibilant: the standard realization of /ɕ/, and its fronted palatalized version [sj]. Four spectral parameters, namely standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis and center of gravity (COG) are analyzed to identify significant and distinctive spectral features of the tested fricative segments. The study also examines variation in the use of the two variants among the speakers and their occurrence depending on the preceding vocalic contexts. Statistical tests reveal significant differences between the two variants of the Polish phoneme in COG for the middle portion of the segment following three non-high vowels: /ɛ, ɑ, ɔ/.