The Acoustic Analysis of Spirantization of the Persian Affricates: Licensing by Cue

Spirantization is a categorical phonological pattern in which affricates are produced without closures. The acoustic analysis of spirantization of the Persian affricates showed that, in connected speech, the friction of affricates is licensed by cue (Steriade (1997, 2001 and Flemming 2002) and not by prosody (Nespor and Vogel 1986). In order to minimize the articulatory efforts and costs in clusters composed of affricates, Persian speakers do not implement the most salient perceptual correlate of affricate manner, i.e. silence duration, in the waveform. Spirantization is a gradient phonetic weakening in which closure of affricates reduces in time and at the same time affricate-fricative opposition is maintained.