Open AccessWord-final T-deletion in Southern German
Author(s) -
Anna Scrimgeour
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
lifespans and styles
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2057-1720
DOI - 10.2218/ls.v4i2.2018.2913
Subject(s) - german , linguistics , word (group theory) , read aloud , reading (process) , psychology , mathematics , natural language processing , biology , computer science , philosophy
The recordings of 20 native German speakers were analysed to identify the strongest factors affecting the rates of word-final t-deletion. Deletion rates were shown to be higher for /t/s in semiweak verbs, when preceded or followed by sibilants, and in a conversational speaking style. In addition to this, frequent words showed higher deletion rates. English and German t-deletion were comparable to some extent in this study. However, deletion rates by morphological complexity showed differences between the languages: monomorphemic words, in particular, had lower deletion rates in German than in English. It was also shown that reading aloud reduces the deletion rates significantly which is in line with previous research.