Abstract
This paper investigates whether values of acoustical correlates of pretonic syllables adjacent to the one(s) perceived as bearing secondary stress could predict such perception in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) data. In order to pursue this goal, a comparison is made between pretonic syllables perceived as bearing secondary stress and those perceived as not bearing it. According to the results, obtained by application of statistical analyses, it is possible to claim that variation in intensity and in F 0 in syllables perceived as bearing secondary stress, as well as in adjacent syllables, can be taken as a robust correlate for data perception regarding secondary stress placement in BP. Variation in intensity and in F 0 in syllables perceived as bearing secondary stress and variation in intensity and in F 0 in the other adjacent pretonic syllables seem to be complementary information for the perception of secondary stresses by BP speakers. The results point to relevant questions for further work concerning the rhythmic and intonational organization of Brazilian Portuguese.
Highlights
Primary and secondary stresses define prominent syllables which play an important role in the construction of language rhythmic units.According to Hulst (1997), primary and secondary stresses must be analysed differently: primary stress is part of the lexical information of the word and secondary stress is assigned post-lexically
The prosodic word (PWd) perceived as bearing secondary stresses by Brazilian Portuguese (BP) speakers totalized 200: 33 PWds produced by speaker (1), PWds produced by speaker (2), PWds produced by speaker (3), 29 PWds produced by speaker (4) and 31 PWds produced by speaker (5)
The intensity and F0 values were extracted from a total of 892 pretonic syllables of these 200 PWds: 35 pretonic syllables bearing secondary stresses and 119 non-prominent pretonic syllables produced by speaker (1), 69 pretonic syllables bearing secondary stresses and 140 non-prominent pretonic syllables produced by speaker (2), 80 pretonic syllables bearing secondary stresses and 141 non-prominent pretonic syllables produced by speaker (3), 29 pretonic syllables bearing secondary stresses and 123 non-prominent pretonic syllables produced by speaker (4) and 31 pretonic syllables bearing secondary stresses and 125 non-prominent pretonic syllables produced by speaker (5)
Summary
Primary and secondary stresses define prominent syllables which play an important role in the construction of language rhythmic units.According to Hulst (1997), primary and secondary stresses must be analysed differently: primary stress is part of the lexical information of the word and secondary stress is assigned post-lexically. Primary and secondary stresses define prominent syllables which play an important role in the construction of language rhythmic units. While there is a natural relationship between secondary stress and rhythm, primary stress is assigned locally, in the lexicon, and is not determined by rhythm ( it plays an important role in rhythmic organization, since primary and secondary stresses interact in speech).. Primary stress is categorical and cannot vary across speakers and language varieties, since its position is lexically fixed and affects the meaning of words, as illustrated by the examples of Portuguese in (1):. Different secondary stress implementations are possible in a word as paralelepípedo “parallelepiped; paving stone” in Portuguese, but these variations do not affect the meaning of the word:
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