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On the Neutralizing Status of Truncation in Intonation: A Perception Study of Boundary Tones in German and Russian

Rathcke, Tamara V (2013) On the Neutralizing Status of Truncation in Intonation: A Perception Study of Boundary Tones in German and Russian. Journal of Phonetics, 41 (3-4). pp. 172-185. ISSN 0095-4470. (doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2013.01.003) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:40315)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wocn.2013.01.003

Abstract

The study examined the effect of f0-truncation on the perception of phrase-final boundary tones in two truncating languages with similarities in their phonological inventories, German and Russian. In particular, the identification of truncated rise–falls (L*+H L%) and rise–plateaus (L*+H H%) under maximized time pressure was addressed, i.e. the nuclear syllable was phrase-final and consisted of a short vowel with voiceless onset and coda consonants. The results revealed that in both languages, truncation did not lead to a complete perceptual merger of the two forms but the situation was found closer to a complete neutralization in Russian as compared to German. More specifically, the temporal domain was exploited to preserve the contrast between L% and H% in German. The listeners showed a slight phrase-final f0-drop to be essential for the identification of L% as opposed to a simple f0-rise which was sufficient to identify H%. In Russian, the frequency domain was predominantly utilized to distinguish between the underlying L% and H% with the unexpected result that a strong upscaling of all f0-targets was necessary for L% to be perceived. The results are discussed in terms of the autosegmental-metrical theory of intonation; and some parallels are drawn between phrase-final positions at segmental and prosodic levels.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1016/j.wocn.2013.01.003
Additional information: number of additional authors: 0;
Subjects: P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
P Language and Literature > PD Germanic philology and languages
P Language and Literature > PG Slavic. Baltic. Albanian
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Tamara Rathcke
Date Deposited: 07 Mar 2014 00:05 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 10:15 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/40315 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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