Acoustic Properties of Canonical and Non-Canonical Stress in French, Turkish, Armenian and Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

Languages are often categorized as having either predictable (fixed or quantity-sensitive) or non-predictable stress. Despite their name, fixed stress languages may have exceptions, so in fact, their stress does not always appear in the same position. Since predictability has been shown to affect certain speech phenomena, with additional or redundant acoustic cues being provided when the linguistic content is less predictable (e.g., Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis), we investigate whether, and to what extent, the predictability of stress position affects the manifestation of stress in different languages. We examine the acoustic properties of stress in three languages classified as having fixed stress (Turkish, French, Armenian), with exceptions, and in one language with non-predictable-stress, Brazilian Portuguese. Specifically, we compare the manifestation of stress in the canonical stress (typically "fixed") position with its manifestation in the noncanonical (exceptional) position, where it would potentially be less predictable. We also compare these patterns with the manifestation of stress in Portuguese, in both the "default" penultimate and the less common final position. Our results show that stress is manifested quite similarly in canonical and non-canonical positions in the "fixed" stress languages and stress is most clearly produced when it is least predictable.

Dimensions of Segmental Variability: Interaction of Prosody and Surprisal in Six Languages

“…In languages with movable stress, such as Brazilian Portuguese (or English), its placement is relatively inconsistent and hence, much less predictable than in fixed-stress languages. This contrasts with languages with fixed stress, such as Armenian, Turkish or French studied in Athanasopoulou et al (2017) that canonically place lexical stress on a specified syllable. At the same time, fixed-stress languages also allow for some non-canonical placements that show degrees of predictability depending on the morphological and phonological aspects of stress location in that language.…”

“…Recently, Athanasopoulou et al (2017) examined the fixed vs. movable phonological stress parameter as a manifestation of predictability. In languages with movable stress, such as Brazilian Portuguese (or English), its placement is relatively inconsistent and hence, much less predictable than in fixed-stress languages.…”

“…At the same time, fixed-stress languages also allow for some non-canonical placements that show degrees of predictability depending on the morphological and phonological aspects of stress location in that language. Athanasopoulou et al (2017) analyzed f0, intensity and vowel dispersion and found that the hypothetically redundant, canonical positions do not decrease the distinctiveness of the acoustic properties, relative to the non-canonical positions. However, the overall position predictability did affect the acoustic manifestation in all of the studied languages.…”

Cyclicity and prosodic misalignment in Armenian stems

“…Armenian lacks common correlates found in final-iambic languages. For example, stress is quantity insensitive and phonetically cued by pitch (Athanasopoulou et al 2017). Turkish and French have stress patterns similar to Armenian and have been argued to lack feet (Özçelik 2017).…”

Acoustic properties of word and phrasal prominence in Uzbek

“…Uzbek and Turkish belong to the same (Turkic) language family and are described as having essentially the same type of stress system (i.e., canonical final stress with certain types of exceptions); however, it turns out that the acoustic properties of stress in the two languages differ considerably. Turkish, like other languages with predictable stress, tends to have relatively weak stress cues (e.g., Athanasopoulou et al 2017, Vogel 2020, exhibiting a minimal acoustic distinction of the final stressed syllable from the penult unstressed syllable. That is, it has been found that in languages with predictable stress, since the position of word stress is independently known, there is less need to enhance the stressed syllable than in languages with unpredictable stress such as Spanish and Greek (e.g., Vogel et al 2016, Ortega-Llebaría & Prieto 2010, Arvaniti 2007.…”