The Interaction of Domain-initial Effects with Lexical Stress: Acoustic Data from English, Spanish, and Portuguese

The phonetic implementation of domain-initial boundaries has gained considerable attention in the literature. However, most studies of the phenomenon have investigated small samples of articulatory data in which target syllables were lexically prominent and/or phrasally accented, introducing important potential confounds. This dissertation tackles these issues by examining how domain-initial effects operate on the acoustic properties of fully unstressed word-initial CV syllables in phrasally unaccented words. Similar materials were designed for a reading task in which 14 speakers of English, Spanish and Portuguese, languages that differ in how lexical prominence affects segmental makeup, took part. Results from the acoustic analyses show that domain-initial effects extend further than previously suggested, and that these interact with lexical stress in language-specific ways. These findings highlight how the marking of domain-initial boundaries relates to both the prominence and grouping functions of prosody, and suggest a linguistic, rather than purely biomechanical, motivation for domain-initial effects

Prosodic boundary phenomena

Synopsis: In spoken language comprehension, the hearer is faced with a more or less continuous stream of auditory information. Prosodic cues, such as pitch movement, pre-boundary lengthening, and pauses, incrementally help to organize the incoming stream of information into prosodic phrases, which often coincide with syntactic units. Prosody is hence central to spoken language comprehension and some models assume that the speaker produces prosody in a consistent and hierarchical fashion. While there is manifold empirical evidence that prosodic boundary cues are reliably and robustly produced and effectively guide spoken sentence comprehension across different populations and languages, the underlying mechanisms and the nature of the prosody-syntax interface still have not been identified sufficiently. This is also reflected in the fact that most models on sentence processing completely lack prosodic information. This edited book volume is grounded in a workshop that was held in 2021 at the annual conference of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS). The five chapters cover selected topics on the production and comprehension of prosodic cues in various populations and languages, all focusing in particular on processing of prosody at structurally relevant prosodic boundaries. Specifically, the book comprises cross-linguistic evidence as well as evidence from non-native listeners, infants, adults, and elderly speakers, highlighting the important role of prosody in both language production and comprehension

Prosodic strengthening on the /s/-stop cluster and the phonetic implementation of an allophonic rule in English

AbstractThis acoustic study investigates effects of boundary and prominence on the temporal structure of s#CV and #sCV in English, and on the phonetic implementation of the allophonic rule whereby a voiceless stop after /s/ becomes unaspirated. Results obtained with acoustic temporal measures for /sCV/ sequences showed that the segments at the source of prosodic strengthening (i.e., /s/ in #sCV for boundary marking and the nucleus vowel for prominence marking) were expanded in both absolute and relational terms, whereas other durational components distant from the source (e.g., stop closure duration in #sCV) showed temporal expansion only in the absolute measure. This suggests that speakers make an extra effort to expand the very first segment and the nucleus vowel more than the rest of the sequence in order to signal the pivotal loci of the boundary vs. the prominence information. The potentially ambiguous s#CV and #sCV sequences (e.g., ice#can vs. eye#scan) were never found to be neutralized even in the phrase-internal condition, cuing the underlying syllable structures with fine phonetic detail. Most crucially, an already short lag VOT in #sCV (due to the allophonic rule) was shortened further under prosodic strengthening, which was interpreted as enhancement of the phonetic feature {voiceless unaspirated}. It was proposed that prosodic strengthening makes crucial reference to the phonetic feature system of the language and operates on a phonetic feature, including the one derived by a language-specific allophonic rule. An alternative account was also discussed in gestural terms in the framework of Articulatory Phonology

Distinguishing Prosodic Word and Phonological Word in Warlpiri: Prosodic Constituency in Morphologically Complex Words

Observations that the phonological word in Warlpiri does not map onto a single constituent in prosodic structure leads us to posit a three-way distinction between prosodic word (PWd), phonological word (PhonWd) and phonological phrase (PPh) in order to account for prosodic constituency in morphologically complex words. We will present evidence that stress is assigned at the level of the PWd, while accent is assigned at the level of the PPh. The PhonWd is the domain for the application of non-prosodic rules governing the distribution of articulatory gestures, e.g. regressive vowel harmony and suffixal allomorphy. Physical correlates of both stress and accent will be discussed. Nash (1986) defines the phonological word in Warlpiri as the domain of stress, vowel harmony and suffixal allomorphy; however, evidence of mismatches between the domains relevant for the application of stress, vowel harmony rules and case allomorphy in complex structures suggests that the PhonWd is distinct from both the PWd and the PPh. For example, regressive vowel harmony triggered by the PAST suffix /-rnu/ is blocked at the boundary between the preverb and verb in the string /pirri-kuju-rnu/ ‘scatter-throw-PAST’, which is defined by Nash (1986) as a single stress domain, thus indicating that the stress and vowel harmony domains are distinct. On the other hand, the nominal compound /wati-wiri-rli/ (lit. man-big-ERG) ‘big group of men’, while exhibiting the same stress pattern as the verbal compound /pirri-kujurnu/, is also the domain which determines suffixal allomorphy: compare with /wati wiri-ngki/ (lit. man big-ERG)‘a big man’. In the compound /wati-wiri-rli/ the morphemes /wati/ and /wiri/ are both PWds, and the compound itself is a PhonWd. In the phrase /wati wiri-ngki/, however, both constituent PWds are distinct PhonWds which combine to create a PPh. Furthermore, complex verbs may contain a consonant-final preverb which does not qualify as a PhonWd (no final vowel), although it does satisfy the requirements to qualify as a PWd (it contains a minimum of two moras or vowels), e.g. /jaarl-kujurnu/ ‘in the way throw-PAST’. While the inflected verb /kujurnu/ constitutes both a PWd and a PhonWd (representing the stress domain and vowel harmony domain respectively), the preverbs /pirri/ and /jaarl/ only constitute PWds which combine with the inflected verb to create a PPh

Juncture prosody across languages: Similar production but dissimilar perception

How do speakers of languages with different intonation systems produce and perceive prosodic junctures in sentences with identical structural ambiguity? Native speakers of English and of Mandarin produced potentially ambiguous sentences with a prosodic juncture either earlier in the utterance (e.g., “He gave her # dog biscuits,” “他给她#狗饼干 ”), or later (e.g., “He gave her dog # biscuits,” “他给她狗 #饼干 ”). These productiondata showed that prosodic disambiguation is realised very similarly in the two languages, despite some differences in the degree to which individual juncture cues (e.g., pausing) were favoured. In perception experiments with a new disambiguation task, requiring speeded responses to select the correct meaning for structurally ambiguous sentences, language differences in disambiguation response time appeared: Mandarin speakers correctly disambiguated sentences with earlier juncture faster than those with later juncture, while English speakers showed the reverse. Mandarin-speakers with L2 English did not show their native-language response time pattern when they heard the English ambiguous sentences. Thus even with identical structural ambiguity and identically cued production, prosodic juncture perception across languages can differ

Juncture prosody across languages : similar production but dissimilar perception

How do speakers of languages with different intonation systems produce and perceive prosodic junctures in sentences with identical structural ambiguity? Native speakers of English and of Mandarin produced potentially ambiguous sentences with a prosodic juncture either earlier in the utterance (e.g., “He gave her # dog biscuits,” “他给她 # 狗饼干”), or later (e.g., “He gave her dog # biscuits,” “他给她狗 # 饼干”). These production data showed that prosodic disambiguation is realized very similarly in the two languages, despite some differences in the degree to which individual juncture cues (e.g., pausing) were favoured. In perception experiments with a new disambiguation task, requiring speeded responses to select the correct meaning for structurally ambiguous sentences, language differences in disambiguation response time appeared: Mandarin speakers correctly disambiguated sentences with earlier juncture faster than those with later juncture, while English speakers showed the reverse. Mandarin speakers also showed higher levels of accuracy in disambiguation compared to English speakers, indicating language-specific differences in the extent to which prosodic cues are used. However, Mandarin, but not English, speakers showed a decrease in accuracy when pausing cues were removed. Thus even with high similarity in both structural ambiguity and production cues, prosodic juncture perception across languages can differ

Variation of pitch accent patterns in Hungarian

In Hungarian, focussed elements occur in certain syntactic positions. Because of this limitation, prominence marking by means of prosody is less salient than in languages where focus can be expressed by accent shift without changes in word order. In this study, we examined Hungarian utterances that were identical in their segmental structure, but differed with regard to their semantic and pragmatic interpretations. Our aim was to see to what extent prosodic prominence marking is used, and which pitch accent patterns can occur in different sentence positions in this language. We found that (1) deaccentuation of content words was relatively seldom, (2) accented words were often preceded by a break, (3) the number of accent distribution patterns was limited, as was the number of (4) pitch accent types in utterance-initial and -final position: initially, late peaks dominated, whereas in final position most accent tones were falling ones. We argue that these uniform patterns are probably due to neutralisation processes

Spanish non-continuants at the phonology-phonetics interface

This paper takes a series of lenition phenomena from Gran Canarian Spanish as a point of departure to discuss the influence of phonology on the phonetics component. Based on phonetic and phonological data, it can be concluded that a blocking effect ensues between the process of coda deletion and post-vocalic voicing, giving rise to phonetic opacity. Against the assumption that the latter process is phonological in nature, acous-tic data suggest that it is highly gradient, coarticulatory and variable, in which case it is inexplicable why it is blocked by phonological segment deletion. The proposed solution set forth in this paper is that the phonetic component has access to deep structure beyond featural specifications of sounds. What is more, evidence from prosody indicates that structural information concerning prosodic boundaries is also transposed into phonetics and influences production. Thus, the type and amount of information computed at the phonetics-phonology interface needs to be revised and supplemented by turbid structures in order to account for surface variability and both inter- and intra-speaker differences

Spanish non-continuants at the phonology-phonetics interface

This paper takes a series of lenition phenomena from Gran Canarian Spanish as a point of departure to discuss the influence of phonology on the phonetics component. Based on phonetic and phonological data, it can be concluded that a blocking effect ensues between the process of coda deletion and post-vocalic voicing, giving rise to phonetic opacity. Against the assumption that the latter process is phonological in nature, acous-tic data suggest that it is highly gradient, coarticulatory and variable, in which case it is inexplicable why it is blocked by phonological segment deletion. The proposed solution set forth in this paper is that the phonetic component has access to deep structure beyond featural specifications of sounds. What is more, evidence from prosody indicates that structural information concerning prosodic boundaries is also transposed into phonetics and influences production. Thus, the type and amount of information computed at the phonetics-phonology interface needs to be revised and supplemented by turbid structures in order to account for surface variability and both inter- and intra-speaker differences