14 Feb 2006

Catherine Dickie

Compound/phrase pairs like "'toy factory" vs "toy 'factory" are said to be minimal pairs on the suprasegmental level, just like /p/ and /b/ are minimal pairs on the segmental level. Here I will report the results of a small scale pilot study in which this stress contrast was elicited in Scottish English. When adult participants were presented with either member of the minimal pair, they were found to select the correct pictorial representation of its interpretation with a high degree of accuracy. I will discuss my findings in relation to Vogel & Raimy's (2002) study of the acquisition of this contrast.

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