ISCA Archive Interspeech 2024
ISCA Archive Interspeech 2024

Intrusive schwa within French stop-liquid clusters: An acoustic analysis

Minmin Yang, Rachid Ridouane

This study investigated the prevalence and acoustic characteristics of intrusive schwas within French consonant clusters. Word-initial and word-final stop-liquid clusters in the productions of ten native French speakers were analyzed. We examined intrusive schwas' frequency, duration, and spectral properties, considering variables such as word position, liquid type, stop voicing, and place of articulation. Our results showed a significant occurrence of intrusive schwas, particularly within voiced stop-rhotic clusters. Temporal features of schwas varied depending on their position within the word, while their spectral attributes were shaped mainly by liquid type and stop place of articulation. Notable differences were observed between schwas occurring within consonant clusters and those following word-final clusters. These findings suggest that phonetic factors underlie schwa occurrences within consonant clusters, while phonological factors drive word-final schwas.