Phonetic Realization of Long Phonems and Biphonemic Consonantal Clusters in Standart Russian

This research analyses duration of long, double consonants compared with respective single consonants. Double consonants imply a single long sound formed by orthographic combination of different consonants. The subject of the study is an affricate sound [ц] in a range of different orthographic combinations and phonemes <ш>, <ш’:>, <ж> compared with the sounds of orthographic combinations ШШ/СШ and ЖЖ/ЗЖ. Each sound was allocated with a test word in Modern Russian, where the sound is exhibited in different orthographic positions standing in either a strong or a weak position. Recorded text analysis and segmentation were performed using PRAAT. Age and gender of the respondents were not significant, all the participants were born and grew up in Moscow. The research included results from 50 respondents. The absolute duration of a consonant as well as a relative duration of the consonant compared to a stressed vowel was counted. Statistical significance was evaluated by the logical regression model and a T-Test. According to the results of this research it can be concluded that that there is no significant difference among phonetical implementations of the sound [ц] («Ц», «ЦЦ», «ТСЯ/ТЬСЯ»); however, the duration of the group «ТЦ/ДЦ» sound is significantly longer compared to the other groups. When the single [ш] sound was compared to the orthographic combination ШШ/СШ it was revealed that statistically significant differences are present when the combination is in the absolute beginning, before a stressed vowel or after a stressed vowel. Intervocalic position did not impact the duration of a sound regardless of a stressed vowel position. Phonemes <ш> and <ш’:> only differ if located in the beginning of a word. A single [ж] and a long [ж:] statistically differ in the absolute beginning of a word and before a consonant.