Cluster Reduction from the Perspective of Articulatory Phonology: A Case of Polish Affricates

Sequences of affricates followed by homorganic fricatives are simplified to affricates in preconsonantal context in Polish. Similarly, geminates are reduced in this environment, which results from the fact that length distinction is not licensed in this position. Despite common motivation, the two types of reduction cannot be handled by the same rule. Unlike geminates, sequences of affricates and fricatives cannot undergo the process of degemination. However, the simplification is motivated by the phonetic adjacency of identical fricative portions, which leads to a conclusion that the rule belongs to the domain of phonetic implementation. Therefore, an Optimality Theoretic solution is aided by the theory of Articulatory Phonology, which can capture the phonetic facts of reduction processes.