Abstract
We examine the realization of word accent contrasts in Standard Latvian and East Aukštaitian Lithuanian across intonational contexts. In our Latvian data the contrast is manifested as level vs. falling pitch in most contexts, in addition to a durational difference. In Aukštaitian Lithuanian, instead, differences in vowel quality and duration cue the lexical contrast in the nuclei that we examine. While Latvian retains a tonal contrast, in Aukštaitian Lithuanian it has been replaced with a combined segmental/quantitative contrast, where the so-called circumflex tone corresponds to relatively shorter duration and, in the case of diphthongs, centralized quality in the first half. We discuss the implications of these findings for further typological work.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 668-672 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Proceedings of the International Conference on Speech Prosody |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2014 |
Event | 7th International Conference on Speech Prosody, SP 2014 - Dublin, Ireland Duration: May 20 2014 → May 23 2014 |
Keywords
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Prosody
- Word accent
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Language and Linguistics
- Linguistics and Language