The typical phonetic features of colloquial Latvian: Speech corpus data analysis

Abstract

Colloquial language is a territorially unlimited type of national language that is understood by the entire community of speakers and usually serves as the means of informal communication in various everyday situations, in the form of oral questions. The main characteristics of colloquial language are spontaneous oral form and informality of the speech situation. It is also characterized by a specific sentence and text structure, expressiveness, a wide spectrum of stylizing means, a specific vocabulary, diverse use of non-verbal means of communication, etc.

In spoken language, a series of phonetic adjustments takes place, related to the pace of speech, rhythm (regularity of stressed words, change), continuity of speech, pauses and their duration, accuracy of articulation and sound changes. In an effort to economize language resources and make pronunciation easier, speakers sometimes pronounce a sound carelessly or reduce it, which causes both positional changes of sounds in words and a reduction in the number of syllables. The article analyses the phonetic-phonological features characteristic of the colloquial language using the data of the “LATE conversations corpus” (LATE-conversations), that are written in orthographic transcription.

The analysis of LATE-conversations data enables defining several features typical of spoken language: 1) fluctuations in the quantity of vowels; 2) loss of vowels or consonants; 3) phonetic changes of a combined type, which are formed by shortened forms of verbs, shortening of words of compound numbers, imprecise, simplified three and pronunciation of foreign words with more syllables; 4) speech intonation and pauses in utterance.