This paper presents results of two investigations of the attitudes towards two types of pronunciation of the definite article for nouns of female gender, ending in a consonant. According to grammar and dictionaries only the pronunciation of the article as [-ta] is normative, while the pronunciation [-tə] is not. Participants in the first investigation (N=2018) listened to a recording of words, pronounced with article [-tə], and were asked to evaluate the pronunciation as right – wrong, sounding good – sounding bad, and belonging to eastern – western dialects. 10-degree scale was used. 88,5% of participants answered that the article [-tə] was wrong and did not sound good, but 60.1% of them did not know if this was eastern or western phenomenon. In order to check if these results were due to social desirability bias, a second study was done. Participants (N=314) listened to recordings of sentences, some of them pronounced normatively with article [-ta], and others pronounced wrong with article [-tə]. Then they had to answer if they hear any mistake in pronunciation, and to evaluate the speaker. 93,5% of the participants answered that the article [-tə] was normatively pronounced, and 88,4% – that the article [-ta] was normatively pronounced as well. Both speakers were highly evaluated. These results prove that the article [-tə] is so widespread, that people do not recognize it as wrong.
Key words: definite article for feminine, normative pronunciation, dialects, attitudes.
