English word and sentences stress patterns as spoken by non‐native speakers

Abstract

Non‐native speakers from six different language backgrounds and native American English speakers produced tokens of three‐syllable word, such as confession and four syllable words, such as confirmation in isolation and in sentences. The acoustic‐phonetic correlates of stress—amplitude, fundamental frequency, and durations—were measured for the first two syllables of each word. Both groups of speakers were highly variable. The Americans consistently produced stress syllables with longer durations than unstressed, but varied considerably in their use of fundamental frequency and amplitude. Syllables of words in sentences were shorter than the words in citation form. In contrast, non‐native speakers' fundamental frequency and amplitude variability was even greater, and they did not differentiate between stressed and unstressed syllables by means of not differentiate between stressed syllables were too short and the unstressed too long. Lengthening unstressed syllables in sentence context was a characteristic pattern of these non‐native speakers.