Interaction between word accent and intonational boundaries in Latvian

Abstract

In Latvian, primary stressed long syllables of content words bear either a level or a falling pitch contour, due to a lexical tonal accent contrast. In this paper we examine the interaction between word accents and intonational boundary tones in Latvian. We assume that intonational contours result from the combination of word-level and utterance-level tones and consider how the word accents are realized in utterances with different pragmatic values, which are in part expressed by choice of boundary tone (L%, H%, HL%). The main result of our investigation is that the existence of a lexical tonal contrast in Latvian introduces some incompatibilities between accentual melodies and intonational boundary tones (e.g. a lexical falling contour on a phrase-final syllable is incompatible with an intonational rise on the same syllable), which are resolved in different ways. Tentatively, we conclude that one resolution is to alter the tonal values of the word accents, in some instances leading to the potential positional neutralization of the contrast. Another strategy is assimilation between boundary tone and word accent. Which tone assimilates to which is left as an open question here.

The reconstruction of Old Common Basque accentuation: Closing open issues

“…We may note, however, that similar accentual systems with a three-way contrast are well attested, including in Osaka Japanese, where besides unaccented words, there are two classes of accented words differing in their melody (see for instance Pierrehumbert & Beckman 1988). The three-way contrast among level, falling and broken (glottalized falling) accent in latvian may also be mentioned in this respect (see Kariņš 1997;Hualde & riad 2018). see also Gómez-Imbert & Kenstowicz (2000) for compounds in Barasana.…”