This study investigates acoustic and articulatory correlates of South
Swedish word accents (Accent 1 vs. 2) — a tonal distinction traditionally
associated with F0 timing. The study is motivated by previous findings
on (i) the acoustic complexity of tonal prosody and (ii) tonal-articulatory
interplay in other languages.
Acoustic and articulatory
(EMA) data from two controlled experiments are reported (14 speakers
in total; pilot EMA recordings with 2 speakers). Apart from the well-established
F0 timing pattern, results of Experiment 1 reveal a longer duration
of a post-stress consonant in Accent 2 than in Accent 1, a higher degree
of creaky voice in Accent 1, as well as a deviant (two-peak) pitch
pattern in Accent 2 for one of eight discourse conditions used in the
experiment. Experiment 2 reveals an effect of word accent on vowel
articulation, as the tongue body gesture target is reached earlier
in Accent 2. It also suggests slight but (marginally) significant word-accent
effects on word-initial gestural coordination, taking slightly different
forms in the two speakers, as well as corresponding differences in
word-initial formant patterns. Results are discussed concerning their
potential perceptual relevance, as well as with reference to the c-center
effect discussed within Articulatory Phonology.
Cite as: Lundmark, M.S., Ambrazaitis, G., Ewald, O. (2017) Exploring Multidimensionality: Acoustic and Articulatory Correlates of Swedish Word Accents. Proc. Interspeech 2017, 3236-3240, doi: 10.21437/Interspeech.2017-1502
@inproceedings{lundmark17_interspeech,
author={Malin Svensson Lundmark and Gilbert Ambrazaitis and Otto Ewald},
title={{Exploring Multidimensionality: Acoustic and Articulatory Correlates of Swedish Word Accents}},
year=2017,
booktitle={Proc. Interspeech 2017},
pages={3236--3240},
doi={10.21437/Interspeech.2017-1502}
}