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Article published In:
Variation in phonology
Edited by Péter Szigetvári
[Linguistic Variation 20:1] 2020
► pp. 56–83
Special issue article

Neutralisation and contrast preservation

Voicing assimilation in Hungarian three-consonant clusters

| The Open University | Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
| Eötvös Loránd University

This paper studies the contextual variation in the voicing properties of three-consonant clusters (CC#C) in Hungarian. We investigate the velar+alveolar stop clusters /kt/ and /ɡd/, and the alveolar fricative+stop clusters /st/ and /zd/ in potentially voicing-neutralising and assimilating contexts. We show that in these contexts, regressive voicing assimilation in Hungarian is categorical, but partially contrast preserving, and that stops and fricatives are not affected in the same way. Fricatives resist voicing before a voiced obstruent and are devoiced utterance-finally. This is a phonetically unfavourable position, therefore other duration-related cues step up to prevent complete laryngeal neutralisation.

Keywords: voicing assimilation, devoicing, Hungarian, contrast, neutralisation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Experiment: Material, procedure, statistical analysis
  • 3.Results and discussion
    • 3.1Utterance-final position
    • 3.2Intervocalic and pre-sonorant position
    • 3.3Voicing assimilation in three-consonant clusters
      • 3.3.1Assimilation of voicelessness before /p/
      • 3.3.2Assimilation of voicing before /b/
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 9 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lv.16010.bar
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