Phonetic Interpretation of the Word Accent Contrast in Swedish
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Olle Engstrand
Abstract
This paper reports an experimental phonetic study of the acute and grave word accents in Central Standard Swedish. The hypothesis was that the fall in fundamental frequency (F₀) observed on the primary stressed syllable in grave words is a direct consequence of the word accent, while the corresponding fall in F₀ in acute words reflects sentence level intonation. Three male subjects read speech material designed to illustrate how these falls in F₀ are influenced by intonational context. The main finding was that the grave fall was substantial and consistent, whereas an acute fall appeared only in certain contexts. The results indicated that an F₀ fall is a positive acousticperceptual requirement for the grave accent, while the acute accent constitutes the unmarked member of the contrast, i.e., ‘acute’ equals ‘non-grave’.
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© 1995 S. Karger AG, Basel
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Special Section
- Contents, Vol. 52, No. 3, 1995
- Editors’ Introduction
- Paper
- Phonetic Explanations for Cross-Linguistic Prosodic Similarities
- Feature, Phoneme, Syllable or Word: How Is Speech Mentally Represented?
- Kleine Phonetik und Große Phonetik
- A Probable Case of Clicks Influencing the Sound Patterns of Some European Languages
- Phonetic Interpretation of the Word Accent Contrast in Swedish
- Interactions of Fundamental Frequency Contour and Perceived Duration in Norwegian
- Effect of Fundamental Frequency on Medial [+Voice] / [–Voice] Judgments
- Determination of Glottal Excitation Cycles in Running Speech
- Vowel-Vowel Production: The Distinctive Region Model (DRM) and Vowel Harmony
- Original Paper
- Danish Vowels – Surface Contrast versus Underlying Form
- Paper
- Explaining the Dispersion of the Single-Vowel Occurrences in an F1/F2 Space
- Schwa vs. Schwa + /r/ in German
- An Interactive Technique for Matching Speaker Identity
- Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of English Affricate Production in Children with Speech Disorders
- The Acoustic Parameters of Polish Voiceless Fricatives: An Analysis of Variance
- Syllable Structure and Dorsal Friction in German
- Further Section
- Index autorum
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Special Section
- Contents, Vol. 52, No. 3, 1995
- Editors’ Introduction
- Paper
- Phonetic Explanations for Cross-Linguistic Prosodic Similarities
- Feature, Phoneme, Syllable or Word: How Is Speech Mentally Represented?
- Kleine Phonetik und Große Phonetik
- A Probable Case of Clicks Influencing the Sound Patterns of Some European Languages
- Phonetic Interpretation of the Word Accent Contrast in Swedish
- Interactions of Fundamental Frequency Contour and Perceived Duration in Norwegian
- Effect of Fundamental Frequency on Medial [+Voice] / [–Voice] Judgments
- Determination of Glottal Excitation Cycles in Running Speech
- Vowel-Vowel Production: The Distinctive Region Model (DRM) and Vowel Harmony
- Original Paper
- Danish Vowels – Surface Contrast versus Underlying Form
- Paper
- Explaining the Dispersion of the Single-Vowel Occurrences in an F1/F2 Space
- Schwa vs. Schwa + /r/ in German
- An Interactive Technique for Matching Speaker Identity
- Phonetic and Phonological Aspects of English Affricate Production in Children with Speech Disorders
- The Acoustic Parameters of Polish Voiceless Fricatives: An Analysis of Variance
- Syllable Structure and Dorsal Friction in German
- Further Section
- Index autorum
