2026/03/01 by Thomas Kettig, Míša Hejná · 1 voice
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Voice and Speech Disorders
paper · doi:10.1121/10.0042363
openalex publication_date 2026/03/01 · openalex created_date 2026/03/13 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/12
No longitudinal studies have reported rates of pre-aspiration across the lifespan of an individual, and few have investigated changes in local breathiness and glottalisation vis-à-vis pre-aspiration, though they have been previously shown to feed and block the phenomenon. We examine the speech of Queen Elizabeth II, finding decreasing rates of pre-aspiration over the course of her life alongside decreasing local breathiness and increasing glottalisation. This finding of pre-aspiration in 20th-century Received Pronunciation suggests that its presence in modern Standard Southern British English, first noted recently among young speakers, is not a sudden innovation.