Lecture | PhonGroup
Vowel reduction in Dutch based on prosodic positions
- Tristan Bouverot (University of Amsterdam)
- Date
- Friday 25 September 2026
- Time
- Serie
- PhonGroup
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 0.01
Abstract
In this study, I will investigate the status and degree of reducability of vowels in Dutch, depending on the prosodic environment they are found in. Stressed vowels in Dutch are realized with full vowel quality, whereas unstressed vowels are prone to being phonetically reduced as schwas. However, not all prosodic environments are equal in terms of vocalic reductions. According to literature, in sequences of two syllables embedded between two stressed syllables, the second syllable in the sequence is usually reduced to a lesser extent than the first one. In the following example, σ1 will always be reduced in more cases than σ2: locomotief ˌσ.σ1.σ2.ˈσ. Such a claim has always been based on authors’ intuition, and never on acoustic measurements.
According to recursive foot theories (Martínez-Paricio, 2013; Martínez-Paricio & Kager, 2015), such a difference in vowel reduction can be explained by differences in foot structure under the assumption that foot-initial positions are more prominent than other positions within the foot. In the previous example, σ1 is less often reduced than σ2 because it is not foot-inital, whereas σ2 is foot-initial: locomotief (ˌσσ1)(σ2(ˈσ)).
My main goal in this study is two-fold. The first is to acoustically measure whether unstressed vowels in Dutch are indeed reduced to different extents depending on prosodic context, and the second is to find out whether differences in terms of vocalic reductions can indeed be mapped onto the internally-layered foot structures of Dutch proposed in Kager & Martínez-Paricio (2018).