Stress clash: Frequency and strategies of resolution

Abstract

The hypothesis that speakers establish a strong–weak stress pattern to resolve stress clash (the adjacency of two primary stressed syllables, e.g., racCOON COAT) was investigated through perceptual and acoustic analysis. Three hypotheses were tested: that primary stress is relocated to an earlier syllable of the sequence (e.g., RACcoon COAT); that stress is reduced on the final syllable that bears primary stress in the first word of the sequence; that stress clash is avoided by pitch accent assignment to an early and to a late-occurring stressable syllable in a sentence. Ten speakers produced iambic target words in stress clash and non-clash contexts with target words placed in early and late-sentence position. Stress clash was resolved in less than 30% of the utterances but also occurred in non-clash contexts. Pitch accent was assigned to an early syllable for words placed in an early sentence position, increasing the frequency of stress shift judgments in both clash and non-clash contexts. Acoustic analysis showed that the information most likely to underlie shifts in stress location was located in the first syllable of target words and that fundamental frequency was the most probable of the potential cues.