02 Sep 2004

Bob Ladd & Ivan Yuen

Bob Ladd
Alignment allophony and the European "pitch accent" languages

Recent work on the way F0 target points are aligned with the segmental string has shown that there are consistent patterns of structurally conditioned variation. For example, our work on Dutch finds that H accent peaks are aligned earlier with long vowels than with short vowels, and earlier with nuclear accents than with prenuclear accents. This paper proposes that such "alignment allophony" can be preserved and phonologised when the conditioning factor is lost through historical change, and that phonologisation of alignment allophony is a plausible mechanism for the genesis of the accentual contrasts and quasi-contrasts seen in European pitch accent systems.

This proposal remedies the only conspicuous weak point in Gussenhoven's account of the Central Franconian tonogensis (which proposes that tonal distinctions somehow arose AFTER the loss of final vowels, in order to eliminate homophony of grammatically distinct forms). The plausibility of our proposal is bolstered by data from contemporary German showing consistently different alignment patterns in pairs where final /-n/ contrasts with a "syllabic" [n] representing /-n@n/, like _den Stein_ (the stone, acc. sg.) vs. _den Steinen_ (the stones, dat. pl.). The disyllabic alignment is preserved in _den Steinen_ even though there is only a single [n] segment, and the two forms are therefore distinguished acoustically by subtle differences of duration and by the pitch contour.

This proposal explains the otherwise puzzling independent development of strikingly similar "complementary distribution" of accentual features in Scandinavia, Central Franconia, and the Scots Gaelic of the Hebrides: in each of these three areas some varieties mark "Accent 1" with some sort of glottal feature (stoed, Schaerfung, etc.) that causes a rapid drop in F0 on the stressed vowel (thereby phonologising early alignment), while others mark "Accent 2" with a lexically attached H tone (thereby phonologising late alignment). More generally, the fact that the European languages - and very few others - seem to keep producing these word accent systems is explained by the fact that their phonological structures (specifically, the fact that they often have vowel quantity contrasts, complex phonotactics, and strong dynamic stress) favour the presence of allophonic differences of alignment that are acoustically salient enough to be phonologised in historical change.

Ivan Yuen
Downtrend and the perception of lexical tones

Downtrend results in different f0 values for a phonologically equivalent accent/tone (Pierrehumbert 1979, Prieto 1996, 1998, Shih 2000). In a late-occurring position-in-utterance, the phonetic f0 value of an accent is realised lower than in an early-occurring position-in-utterance. In equating different f0 values to the same perceived prominence of an accent, it has been shown that listeners compensate for downtrend with regard to a global reference line (Pierrehumbert 1979, Gussenhoven and Rietveld 1988, Terken 1991, Gussenhoven et al 1997). But it is not clear what information in the f0 contour listeners employ in constructing a frame of reference in order to normalise for downtrend. The current study investigated normalisation of downtrend in a tone language (Cantonese), which allows us to examine what f0 information in the f0 contour can be employed as a reference frame in normalising for downtrend.

The results of a perception experiment showed that downtrend was compensated for in identifying Cantonese tones and that there was a strong local f0 context effect in the normalisation.

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