Stress is phonetically reset word-internally in Squamish

Abstract

The purpose of this experiment was to test a phonologically based prediction suggesting that in Squamish the domain for stress is reset word-internally in certain morphologically limited cases. This is unusual because stress systems usually assign only one primary stress within a word. This prediction was tested by first identifying the phonetic correlates of stress in this language, then applying these criteria to this morphological context. One subject was tested by recording a list of stimuli containing morphologically simplex words of varying length and words containing the morphological structure of interest. Results of this study show, first, that length, F0, and amplitude are all indicators of primary and secondary stress and, second, that primary stress occurs twice within a single noncompound word.