Pausal pronunciation

In linguistics, pausa (Latin for "break", from Greek "παῦσις" pausis "stopping, ceasing") is the hiatus between prosodic units.

Some sound laws specifically operate in pausa only; for example, certain phonemes may be pronounced differently at the beginning or end of a word when no other word precedes or follows within the same prosodic unit, as in citation form. That is the case with the final-obstruent devoicing of German, Turkish, Russian, and other languages in which voiced obstruent consonants are devoiced pre-pausa as well as before voiceless consonants.

The opposite environment is relevant in Spanish whose voiced fricatives become stops post-pausa as well as after nasals. Such environments are often termed pre-pausal and post-pausal, respectively; the phrases in pausa and pausal form are often taken to mean at the end of a prosodic unit, in pre-pausal position, as pre-pausal effects are more common than post-pausal ones.

In English, the last stressed syllable before a pausa receives tonic stress, giving the illusion of a distinction between primary and secondary stress. In dialects of English with linking or intrusive R (a type of liaison), the r is not realized in pausa even if the following word begins in a vowel. Similarly, French liaison does not operate in pausa.

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