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Constant Tonal Alignment in Swedish Word Accent II

På svenska

Author

  • Malin Svensson

Summary, in English

Studies on accentual tonal alignment of intonational languages suggest a segmental anchoring of tonal targets, more specifically that L in rising (LH) pre-nuclear accents anchors with a specific point in the segment, while the timing of H varies. This study tests if lexical accents, too, exhibit a constant alignment by testing the South Swedish word Accent II using speech rate as an experimental tool. When under the strain of tempo variability the L-target was shown not to be anchored with syllable onset, while the H-target anchored close to syllable offset. This could mean that H is an important phonological event in Accent II, while L is not. Further studies are suggested on the following L-target. Results suggest further that additional factors such as individual speaker strategies and effects of speech rate should be taken into account in future studies.

Department/s

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Document type

Student publication for Master's degree (one year)

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • tonal alignment
  • segmental anchoring
  • word accent
  • pre-nuclear accent
  • speech rate

Supervisor

  • Gilbert Ambrazaitis