Open AccessDuration of French Vowels in Unemphatic Stress
Author(s) -
AndréPierre Benguerel
Publication year - 1971
Publication title -
language and speech
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.713
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1756-6053
pISSN - 0023-8309
DOI - 10.1177/002383097101400406
Subject(s) - intonation (linguistics) , vowel , duration (music) , syllable , stress (linguistics) , vowel length , audiology , psychology , mathematics , linguistics , speech recognition , acoustics , computer science , medicine , physics , philosophy
An experiment was designed to study the duration of French vowels in unemphatic stress, under controlled conditions. It was found that the lengthening of the stressed vowel depends primarily on two factors: intonation and syllable structure. Lengthening is greater when intonation falls than when it rises and this difference is more marked for open syllables than for closed syllables. Even though unemphatic stress correlates best with vowel duration when the intonation falls, it is suggested that when intonation rises, unemphatic stress correlates best with rising fundamental frequency and to a certain extent with the presence of a pause, and with vowel duration.
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