Phonetics and Phonology of Speaking Styles: Reduction and Elaboration in Speech Communication Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain September 30 - October 2, 1991

Connected Speech in Welsh: Stress and Pitch in Conflict

Martin J. Ball

Polytechnic of Wales

This paper will examine certain connected speech characteristics of Welsh, in particular the interaction of stress and pitch. Welsh, with a few exceptions, has fixed stress on the penultimate syllable. Major pitch movements, however, have been described as occurring principally on the final syllable of regularly stressed lexical items. Unusually, therefore, pitch movements as part of the intonation system do not coincide with stressed syllables.

This conflict has implications for changes observed between citation forms of certain common functives and the forms encountered in connected speech, in that there are regular deletions of stressed penultimates with the retention of unstressed final syllables.

The paper will briefly outline both the stress system of Welsh, and the main intonation patterns utilised in southern varieties of the language. It will then illustrate the conflict between stress and pitch in connected speech described above. In conclusion, a possible explanation for the dual positioning of the stress and pitch is discussed.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Ball, Martin J. (1991): "Connected speech in Welsh: stress and pitch in conflict", In PPoSpSt-1991, paper 008.