Phonetic variation in Slovak yer and non-yer vowels

We examine the phonetic characteristics of yer and non-yer vowels in Slovak in an effort to improve our understanding of the link between phonological differences and their phonetic realizations. We test the wide-spread assumption of phonological analyses that yer vowels are phonetically identical to their non-yer counterparts with measures of vowel duration, vowel quality and the patterns of coarticulation with surrounding sounds in both acoustic and articulatory data. Moreover, we compare these patterns with the patterns arising from the variation in speech rate. Our results provide tentative support for the hypothesis that yer vowels in Slovak are phonetically weaker than their non-yer counterparts. The relevance of this observation for the models of phonetics–phonology interface is discussed.

► Duration, quality, and coarticulatory properties of yer and non-yer vowels in Slovak.
► Predictions of their phonetic identity tested with articulatory and acoustic measures.
► Tentative support for greater phonetic weakness of yer than non-yer vowels.
► Articulatory Phonology and Exemplar Theory can conceptualize the observations.