Universität zu Köln

Seifart, Frank, Strunk, Jan, Danielsen, Swintha, Hartmann, Iren, Pakendorf, Brigitte, Wichmann, Soren, Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena, Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. and Bickel, Balthasar (2021). The extent and degree of utterance-final word lengthening in spontaneous speech from 10 languages. Linguist. Vanguard, 7 (1). BERLIN: WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH. ISSN 2199-174X

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Abstract

Words in utterance-final positions are often pronounced more slowly than utterance-medial words, as previous studies on individual languages have shown. This paper provides a systematic cross-linguistic comparison of relative durations of final and penultimate words in utterances in terms of the degree to which such words are lengthened. The study uses time-aligned corpora from 10 genealogically, areally, and culturally diverse languages, including eight small, under-resourced, and mostly endangered languages, as well as English and Dutch. Clear effects of lengthening words at the end of utterances are found in all 10 languages, but the degrees of lengthening vary. Languages also differ in the relative durations of words that precede utterance-final words. In languages with on average short words in terms of number of segments, these penultimate words are also lengthened. This suggests that lengthening extends backwards beyond the final word in these languages, but not in languages with on average longer words. Such typological patterns highlight the importance of examining prosodic phenomena in diverse language samples beyond the small set of majority languages most commonly investigated so far.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Seifart, Frank UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Strunk, Jan UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Danielsen, Swintha UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Hartmann, Iren UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Pakendorf, Brigitte UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Wichmann, Soren UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Witzlack-Makarevich, Alena UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Bickel, Balthasar UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-598110
DOI:	10.1515/lingvan-2019-0063
Journal or Publication Title:	Linguist. Vanguard
Volume:	7
Number:	1
Date:	2021
Publisher:	WALTER DE GRUYTER GMBH
Place of Publication:	BERLIN
ISSN:	2199-174X
Language:	English
Faculty:	Unspecified
Divisions:	Unspecified
Subjects:	no entry
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Keywords Language CONTEXTUAL PREDICTABILITY; DURATION; PHRASE; FREQUENCY; POSITION Multiple languages Linguistics; Language & Linguistics Multiple languages
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/59811