Os alófonos de /b, d, g/ en galego

The category of approximant sounds has been defined by leading phoneticians and recognized by the International Phonetic Association; nonetheless, within this class of sounds, semivowels, rhotic sonorants and other approximants such as [β ∂ Y] are not clearly differentiated. In a recently published study, Martinez-Celdran (2004) proposes a new definition which considers approximants as a category composed of several subclasses of sounds. The present work deals with the phonetic realizations of the consonants /b, d, g/ in Galician in the contexts where, after the phonetic descriptions, approximant sounds are expected. Indeed, approximant sounds turn up in the majority of cases (although plosives and fricatives are also present) in all the contexts, except after /s/. This paper focuses on the acoustic description of the spirant approximants [β ∂ Y], comparing them to plosives and fricatives. An effort was also made to find reliable acoustic parameters to distinguish open and closed approximants. The results show that plosives, fricatives, open approximants and closed approximants present statistically significant differences both in duration and intensity, demonstrating the pertinence of the categorization postulated by Martinez-Celdran.