Rudkivskyy O. German Consonants in Spontaneous Speech: Structural and Funсtional Aspects (An Experimental Phonetic Study)

This dissertation focuses on the study of modern German consonants in spontaneous speech from structural and functional perspectives aiming at elucidating the consonants' realization in strong and weak positions of the speech flow, analysing modification processes in the units under consideration and determining the stability / variability degree of their distinctive features. It has been proved that the functioning of consonant phonemes in German spontaneous speech is characterized by instability of such distinctive features as "manner of articulation" and "work of the vocal cords" as a result of the absence of aspiration and partial vocalization of voiceless fortis plosives and fricatives, spirantization and devocalization of voiced lenis plosives, vocalization and elision of sonorants. The voiced fricative phoneme /r/, lateral /l/, resonant /n/ and voiceless plosive /t/ with regard to their distinctive features' realization undergo weakening, vocalization and elision. Allophones of the resonant phoneme /n/ in the unstressed syllable "-en" also have a high variability degree.