Studiu comparat al fenomenului de hiat în limbile română şi engleză [Articol]

Abstract

The sequences of adjacent vowels in English like in Romanian language evoke a complex problem, that views the quantity and the quality of the phonic elements the hiatus consists of. During the process of articulation, one of the vowels loses its syllabic character, being included into a single syllable, with a single muscular tension together with another vowel. One of the features common to Romanian and English spoken languages through which these two differ from the literary language is the unsteady character of the vowels and the vocalic groups. There is a wide spread tendency to avoid the hiatus through the introduction of a supporting element between those two adjacent vowels. In some situations, the supporting element is not only justified but also inevitable. The given article is a synthesized study of the conditions that favour the phenomenon of the phonic elements’ neutralization, the causes of devocalization, and the ways of hiatus avoidance.