On a Case of Complete Lag Dissimilation in Modern Standard Russian

The present paper reports some new results of the experimental research aimed at fi nding out whether the complete regressive lag dissimilation is possible for coronal vibrant [r] and labio-dental fricative/approxi mant [v] in a position before the same consonant in the following syllable in Modern Standard Russian. 33 The fi rst experiment examined consonant cluster regressive lag dissimilation in two groups of words. The fi rst group included words with consonant clusters with fi nal [r] or [v] followed by the homorganic consonant in the next syllable (chyorstvogo, rasprostranyayutsya, chuvstvovat’, pervogo). The second group included words with the same consonant clusters but no homorganic consonant was present in the next syllable (chyorstvaya, rasprostirayutsya, chuvstvo, pervaya). Seventy-two speakers of Modern Standard Russian — students of Moscow State University from 18 up to 28 years of age — participated in the study. A total of 1129 tokens were manually analyzed using Praat software. Specifi cally, in order to detect the presence or absence of the target sounds, for labio-dental fricative/approximant [v], the second formant’s and intensity values in a vocalic part of segment adjacent to dental stop [t] (e.g., chyorstvogo) or coronal vibrant (e.g., pervogo) were measured; for vibrant [r], the closure part was analyzed. The results showed that [v] consonant was absent in 74–91 % of cases in the words of the fi rst group, but only in 3–7 % of cases in the words of the second group. Similarly, [r] was absent in 85–90 % in the words of the fi rst group and 1–18 % in the words of the second group. Moreover, although the deletion of the cluster fi nal [r] and [v] was detected in all clusters analyzed in this study, it is more likely to be observed in a cluster containing more than two consonants. Furthermore, the present fi ndings demonstrated that the dissimilation might depend on the position of the word in a phrase, being more frequent for the words under phrase accent. The follow-up experiment was designed to assess the effect of word stress on the complete regressive lag dissimilation of the consonant cluster with labio-dental fricative/approximant [stv]. A total of 141 tokens from 72 Modern Russian speakers were obtained, the stimuli included two words kho’dataystvovat’ and torzhestvo’vat’ and were analyzed in PRAAT. The results showed that the dissimilation can be found more often before unstressed syllable than before the stressed one (91 % and 37 % of cases, respectively). Thus, in accordance with the initial hypothesis, the second experiment demonstrated that complete regressive lag dissimilation (consonant deletion) depends on the consonant cluster position in a word.