The Phoneme /v/ in the Spoken Slovene Literary Language

Abstract

Phoneme /v/ is a phoneme with the most allophonnes and mormatively (otthoepically) the most complex phoneme in the spoken Slovene literary language. Its numeous allophones have also made the phonological classification of individual variants as well as the phoneme as whole controversial. Toporišič defines it as a sonorant with tree consonantal variants: [v] (the basic variant), voiced [w] and voiceless [v!], and a semi-vocalic [-u!]; bilabial variants preceding aconsonant, [w] and [v!], in slow speech also have u-like variant, i.e., syllabic u. Srebot Rejec, however, based on instrumental research, defines allophones [v!] and [w] in any kind of speech as u-like. In word-initial position followed by liquids /r/ and /l/ she recommends a labio-dental pronuncuation. - Based on acoustic analysis of contemporary and "live" radio texts the allophones [v!] and [w] can be classified as vocalic, i.e. u-like allophones (syllabic and non-syllabic). However, word-initial labio-dental pronunciation followed by liquids [vl-, vr-]and the pronunciation of the preposition [v] continue to present a particular orthoepic problem.