Evidence for a constraint-based account of French phrasing andaccentuation in different speaking styles

Abstract

A number of interacting factors determine which syllablesare accented in an utterance, such as word grouping, grammatical category, and speaking style. Two questionsare addressed in this paper: (1) how does speaking styleaffect phrasing and accentuation in French, and (2) can theaccount proposed in Post [15], which uses partial rankingto model prosodic variation, adequately describe thesedata? Recordings of two Map Tasks were analysedauditorily and acoustically, and compared with earlierfindings for read speech. The results support the account,showing that speakers produced slightly fewer phrases,and considerably fewer accents. The findings not onlyallow us to evaluate the explanatory power of partialranking, but also have implications for a phonologicalaccount of French intonation. If clear predictions can bemade about the locations of pitch movements in theutterance, the number of intonation contours that can berealised is restricted