Phonetic evidence for an iterative stress system: the issue of consonantal rhythm

Abstract

In her study published in this journal, Newlin-Łukowicz (2012) calls into question the existence of bidirectional stress systems. The argument hinges on the failure to detect acoustic correlates of word-internal subsidiary stress in Polish, the language hitherto considered to be a classic example of metrical bidirectionality. This paper reappraises the issue, reporting on an acoustic study of paired five- and six-syllable words in Polish (e.g. ˎpomido′rowy – ˎpomiˎdoro-′wego). The results indicate that the words differ significantly with respect to relative consonant duration (PVI values) in the onset of the third syllable, depending on whether the syllable bears subsidiary stress (as in six-syllable words) or remains unstressed (as in five-syllable words). Similar effects are reported in the initial syllable, but not in the second syllable, which remains consistently unstressed. The conclusion is that Polish has iterative stress, corroborating its traditional description as having a bidirectional stress system.

Lexical stress in Polish: evidence from focus and phrase-position differentiated production data

“…Assuming the above interpretation of S2 induced lengthening (cf. [19,36]), we were not able to show systematic acoustic evidence for secondary stress in our study. However emphatic, post-lexical stress might still be evidenced in Polish: we propose that the secondary stress position is an affordance for acoustic prominence realised under emphasis in specific discourse styles such as media speech [3,24,22].…”

Rhythmic stress in Ukrainian: Acoustic evidence of a bidirectional system

“…The existence of bidirectional iterative stress systems has been recently called into question by Newlin-Łukowicz (2012), who failed to detect secondary stress in her experimental study of Polish, so far the best documented system with bidirectional iterative stress (Dłuska 1932, Rubach & Booij 1985, Kraska-Szlenk 2003). However, Łukaszewicz (to appear) provides acoustic evidence for the existence of consonantal rhythm in Polish based on increased duration of onset consonants. The current study demonstrates that a similar rhythmic pattern is found in Ukrainian, where secondary stress appears on initial and every odd-numbered syllable separated from the primary stress by at least one position.…”

“…A recent acoustic study of secondary stress in Polish, which is geographically and historically related to Ukrainian, has revealed that secondary stress is expressed by an increased length of consonants in the onsets of stressed syllables (Łukaszewicz 2015, to appear). As for Ukrainian, there are indications in the literature that vowels have different durations in unstressed syllables depending on their distance from lexical stress (Toc’ka 1973).…”

Rhythmic stress or word-boundary effects? Comparison of primary and secondary stress correlates in segmentally identical word pairs

“…(The measurements were automated in terms of a Praat script.) Extrinsic comparisons ( [17], [18]) of the duration of the corresponding segments within each minimal pair were carried out. To this end, eight paired-sample t-tests were performed.…”

“…Previous research has suggested that both consonants and vowels can contribute to the acoustic expression of stress ( [5], [6], [18]). Therefore, both vocalic and consonantal duration were analysed in the present study.…”