The role of vowel quality in stress clash.
Item
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Title
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The role of vowel quality in stress clash.
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Identifier
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AAI9946188
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identifier
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9946188
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Creator
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Levey, Sandra Kay.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Lawrence J. Raphael
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Date
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1999
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Language, Linguistics | Speech Communication | Physics, Acoustics
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Abstract
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The effect of stress clash between adjacent primary stressed syllables was examined through perceptual and acoustical analysis. Bisyllabic target words with primary stress on the second syllable were produced in citation form and in sentences by ten adult participants. The selected target words were analyzed for (a) the position of primary stress and (b) the identity of the vowel in the first syllable when produced in citation form. The goal was to determine if primary stress was placed on the final syllable and that the first syllable contained a vowel that could receive primary stress. Words judged to not meet these criteria were eliminated from the corpus. The target words were placed in stress clash contexts (followed by a primary stressed syllable) and in non-clash contexts (followed by a non-primary stressed syllable). The goal was to determine if stress clash resolution would occur, and if so, which of three explanations could account for resolution: (a) stress shift, with primary stress shifted to the first syllable in the target words or stress deletion, with acoustic features reduced in the second syllable in the target words, (b) pitch accent, taking the form of fundamental frequency, assigned to the first syllable in target words produced in early-sentence position or (c) increased final syllable duration in the target word. Perceptual judgment showed that stress clash was resolved inconsistently in stress clash contexts, and that stress shift also occurred in non-clash contexts. Acoustic analysis showed that fundamental frequency was higher the first syllable of target words when stress shift occurred, and that both syllables of the target words were produced with higher fundamental frequency in early-sentence position. A test of the correlation between perceptual judgments and acoustic results showed that fundamental frequency was potentially the primary acoustic feature that signaled the presence of stress shift.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
