Jolita Urbanavičienė, Inese Indričāne, Jurgita Jaroslavienė, Juris Grigorjevs. Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century: an experimental study of consonants

Download Book II (Annex 3. Samples of audio recordings featured: Latvian woman, Latvian man, Lithuanian woman, Lithuanian man)

Jolita Urbanavičienė, Inese Indričāne, Jurgita Jaroslavienė, Juris Grigorjevs. Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century: an experimental study of consonants
Monograph with audio illustrations. Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2019. ISBN 978-609-411-252-2, https://doi.org/10.35321/e-pub.2.baltu-garsynas

The collective monograph titled Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century: an experimental study of consonants with audio illustrations is a continuation of Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century, a series of books published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and a follow-up on Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century: an experimental study of vowels and coarticulation, the first book of the series. It is the second joint project of Lithuanian and Latvian researchers geared towards comparative instrumental research of the consonant system of the modern Lithuanian and Latvian language done objectively under a consistent methodology. Until now, instrumental research of sounds carried out in Lithuania and in Latvia have varied in their methods, the technical parameters of sound recording, which made it impossible to compare them objectively. Besides, the two countries are dealing with different phonetical and phonological issues yet there is a shortage of capital generalising studies dedicated to the system of sounds of the Baltic languages.

The drafting of the collective monograph Sounds of the Baltic languages in the early 21st century: an experimental study of consonants drew both on the experience of the Latvian colleagues and on the methodological principles developed by the Lithuanian school of phonetics and phonology. This collective monograph presents:

  • the acoustic and articulatory characteristics of Lithuanian and Latvian (plosive, fricative, affricate, and sonant) consonants covered by the instrumental analysis, highlighting their key distinguishing acoustic properties;
  • a detailed description of the research methodology: some studies of Lithuanian consonants (such as those pertaining to relativity, intensity, plosion phase duration, locus equations) were performed for the first time ever;
  • the influence of various criteria (such as palatalization, voicing, type and place of articulation, gender) on the acoustic attributes of consonants;
  • universal characters assigned to Lithuanian and Latvian consonants based on the international phonetical alphabet, a common classification of consonantal phonemes of the Baltic languages;
  • ample video material illustrating the outcomes of the research: spectrograms, diagrams, tables, figures showing the positioning of consonants on a coordinates plane, and so on.

It is likely that the research outcomes and data published in this monograph will be highly instrumental to researchers in Lithuania, Latvia, and other countries.