Abstract
Languages with binary stress systems frequently tolerate a stress lapse over the final two syllables, but almost none tolerate a word-initial stress lapse. Lunden (to appear) argues that this lapse asymmetry can be explained by the presence of word-level final lengthening, which can then create the perception of prominence alternation in languages that use duration as stress correlate. The results of a production and a perception study with English speakers are presented which compare /ɑ/s that occur under stress lapse to /ɑ/s in non-stress-lapse positions. While word-final unstressed /ɑ/ is always longer than non-final unstressed /ɑ/, it is significantly longer when immediately following an unstressed syllable. Similarly, unstressed word-final /ɑ/ has a higher F1 and lower F2 than non-final unstressed /ɑ/, but word-finally this less-reduced vowel is closer to a full vowel when the final syllable is part of a stress lapse. The perception study finds that these differences have perceptual consequences that can lead to a perceived continued rhythm in stress lapse. The phonetic differences explain why a word-final unstressed vowel can be perceived as relatively strong when following an unstressed syllable but as relatively weak when following a stressed syllable.
Highlights
English is well-known for correlating duration and vowel quality with stress: Unstressed syllables are both notably shorter and phonologically reduced compared with stressed vowels (e.g., Fry, 1958; Beckman & Edwards, 1994)
Post-hoc pairwise comparisons using Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) adjustment were run for Position * Word-Stress, and significance levels from these tests are the source of reported p-values
The perception study was set up to establish whether the phonetic differences between vowels from word-internal unstressed syllables—(c) vs. (e) in Figure 5—and between vowels from word-final syllables—(d) vs. (f)—found in the production study had consequences for the perception of rhythm
Summary
English is well-known for correlating duration and vowel quality with stress: Unstressed syllables are both notably shorter and phonologically reduced compared with stressed vowels (e.g., Fry, 1958; Beckman & Edwards, 1994). Flemming and Johnson (2007) found that word-final [ə] shows a significantly different F1 and F2 from non-final reduced vowels (they argue that [ə] should be used only for word-final reduced vowels and that [ɨ] should be used non-). Word-final vowels in English, show greater duration (Oller, 1973; Klatt, 1976; Wightman et al, 1992) and less vowel reduction (Hammond, 1999; Flemming & Johnson, 2007) than non-final unstressed vowels. Phonetic differences, such as length, inherent to particular positions have been linked to phonological patterns. This work expands the evidence for the proposal in Lunden (to appear) that final lengthening can be linked to word-final stress lapse in binary stress languages
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