Articulatory and acoustic correlates of prenuclear and nuclear accents

Abstract

In this paper we investigate acoustic and articulatory anchors for F0 targets corresponding to prenuclear and nuclear accent peaks in German, both across two different articulation rates (normal and fast) and across two different syllable structures (CV: and CVC). For the articulatory measurements we used Electromagnetic Midsagittal Articulography (EMMA). Whereas in Dutch the H peak of a rising prenuclear accent has been shown to occur at the edge of the accented syllable [1], in German the peak occurs during the syllable following the accented one, in the vowel. Like in English and Dutch, nuclear peaks in German are aligned earlier than prenuclear ones: H peaks were found to occur at some point during the consonant following the vowel of the accented syllable, although no consistent acoustic anchor could be identified. We found that F0 turning points aligned more systematically with minima and maxima in the kinematic signals than with acoustically defined events. Furthermore, we interpret the difference in alignment between prenuclear and nuclear accents as a shift from a gesture corresponding to a vowel to a gesture corresponding to a consonant. Within each accent type the kinematic alignment was stable across the different conditions.