Abstract
Accentual prominence has well-documented effects on various phonetic properties, including timing, vowel quality, amplitude, and pitch. These cues can exist in trading relationships and can differ in magnitude in different languages. Less is understood about how phonetic cues to accentuation surface under different phonological constraints, such as those posed by segmental phonology, aspects of the prosodic hierarchy, and intonational phonology. Dialectal comparisons offer a valuable window on these issues, because dialects of a language share basic aspects of structure and function, but can differ in key segmental and suprasegmental constraints which may affect the cues that realise accentual prominence. We compared the realisation of trochaic words (e.g. cheesy, picky) in accented/unaccented and phrase-final/non-final positions in two dialects of British English, Standard Southern British English, and Standard Scottish English as spoken in Glasgow. We found generally shallower prominence gradients for Glasgow than SSBE with respect to intensity and duration, and very little evidence of accentual lengthening of vowels in Glasgow, compared to robust effects in SSBE. In contrast, phrase-finality had similar effects across the two dialects. The differences observed illustrate how the expression of accentual prominence reflects and reveals the different segmental and intonational systems that operate within dialects of the same language.
Highlights
Parts of the speech stream stand out when someone speaks: those elements are prominent
We focused on trochaic words, which offer the scope to explore the domains of accentual lengthening in relation to that of phrase-final lengthening
To answer research question (3) (To what extent are the acoustics of accentual prominence and phrase-finality constrained by segmental phonology?) we modelled stressed vowel duration, stressed vowel quality, and unstressed vowel duration as a function of prosody, dialect, and variables relating to the dialect’s vowel system
Summary
Parts of the speech stream stand out when someone speaks: those elements are prominent. This study explores whether and how these ingredients combine differently in different dialects of English, according to their specific segmental and intonational phonological constraints. The answer to this question may help to understand the balance of universal and specific factors in how prominence is controlled, and how prominence is perceived despite variation in production. A range of factors conspire to determine what stands out in the ebb and flow of speech, from intrinsic acoustic salience through to familiarity, predictability, attentional demands and the type of task the listener is engaged in
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