22 Feb 2005

Bob Ladd

Since the discovery in the mid 1990s of "segmental anchoring" - regularities in the way F0 turning points are aligned with identifiable landmarks in the segmental string - a number of recent studies have tried to discover the nature of the phonological structures and phonological domains that affect alignment. Ladd, Mennen & Schepman 2000 (JASA) reported a difference in the alignment of rising prenuclear accents in Dutch that is caused by phonological vowel length even in the absence of any difference of phonetic vowel duration. On this basis they argued that the true cause of the difference is syllable structure (which is affected by phonological vowel length) rather than vowel length per se. However, subsequent studies (including a recent paper on Dutch *nuclear* accents by Schepman, Lickley & Ladd) make the syllable structure account harder to maintain. New data from English, to be reported here, also argue against a simple autosegmental analysis in which tones are associated with syllable boundaries. However, they may be consistent with a gestural model in which accentual pitch movements are in some way coordinated with syllables and/or words.

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