Contrasting the high rise and the low rise intonations in a dialect with the Central Franconian tone

Abstract

The dialect of Helden ( Netherlands) maintains intonational contrasts between the fall, the fall-rise, the low rise and the high rise, while also having a binary lexical tone contrast in (accented or unaccented) final syllables in the IP as well as in accented IP-internal syllables. The lexical tone contrast, which is an instance of the Central Franconian tone contrast known as Accent 1 vs Accent 2, a ppears in the stressed syllable of words, and so competes with the contour differences that are due to the intonational contrasts. In general, the Helden lexical contrasts fall within the phonetic variation that is available for the Standard Dutch intonation contours. The dialect maintains these multiple contrasts (a) by different timings of the falling movement in the fall and the fall-rise, which is later for Accent 2; ( b) by different timings of the rising movement in the low rise, which is later for Accent 2; (c) by a lowered realization of the first H-tone after the lexical tone in the post-focal contour of the low rise and the high rise, and (d) by making IP-final rimes with Accent 2 longer than those with Accent 1.