Introduction

1. Segmental anchoring and coping with vowel loss EviaKainada & Mary Baltazani ekainada@cc.uoi.gr, mbaltaz@cc.uoi.gr Department of Linguistics, University of Ioannina Results L*+H realised similarly in NGand SMG(SMG: L 5ms before C0, H11ms into V1. NG: L 5ms into C0, H 4ms into V1) Figure 3:[Left] Spectrogram of word διαλέγουν [ðialéγun] carrying a L*+H pitch accent, as produced by a NG speaker. [Right] Generalised tone alignment. L*+Hdel in NG. The L is pushed leftwards (10ms before the onset of C0). The H appears 30ms into first available sonorant consonant, or 10ms before the onset of C1 (that is, at the end of V0) if obstruent. Figure 4: [Left] Spectrogram of word διαλέγει [ðialéʝ]carrying a L*+Hdel pitch accent, as produced by a NG speaker. [Right] Generalised tone alignment in NG. No lengthening of stressed vowel in L*+Hdel conditions?Christou & Baltazani (2007) reported lengthening of the accentual vowel when the first post-accentual vowel gets deleted. Initial results do not support this claim, however more data need to be analysed (only 98 minimal pairs across speakers and vowels were identified sharing the same word and approximate prosodic position). Four out of five speakers show a tendency for lengthening, that does not, however, reach significance. Introduction L*+H is described as the predominant pitch accent choice for pre-nuclear positions in Standard Modern Greek (SMG). The L tone appears near the onset of the stressed syllable and the H tone aligns after the onset of the post-accentual vowel (Arvaniti et al. 1998, see Figure 3), i.e., L*+H needs both the stressed and the immediately following syllable to be realized canonically. We examine the nature of this anchoring, because it is controversial whether it is specified phonetically by dialect/language-specific phonetic implementation rules (e.g. Ladd et al 2009) or phonologically as a secondary association of the tonal targets with the edges of syllables/segments (Prieto & Torreira 2007) Figure 1: Example of representation of phonological secondary association (taken from Ladd 2008:177) Northern Greek (NG) Vowel Deletion: deletion of unstressed high vowels /i, u/, e.g. /malóni/ [malón] ‘scolds’, can delete the post-stress syllable where the H tone of L*+H is realized. The question What happens when the anchor point, i.e., the first post-accentual vowel, gets deleted, as in Northern Greek? • Methodology • Participants:Five native NG speakers (4f, 1m, 45-70 years old) recorded producing semi-spontaneous speech. • Elicitation method:Speakers were prompted with a picture and were asked (by a dialectal speaker) to answer a question regarding the picture. E.g. What is Giannis using to cut the onions? They were instructed to answer with full sentences, e.g. Giannis is using a knife to cut the onions. • Figure 2: Example of picture shown to participants • Materials:20 sentences had content words constructed to potentially involve deletion of the post-accentual vowel, matched with 20 sentences not involving deletion. All L*+Hdel(deletion of the first post-accentual vowel) and L*+H tokens were analysed. • Measurements: • Duration of all segments (C0, V0 = stressed syllable; C1, V1 = post-accentual syllable) • Alignment of L with respect to C0 • Alignment of H • with respect to V1 onset in the case of L*+H • with respect to C1 offset in the case of L*+Hdel • Conclusions • In the absence of the first post-accentual vowel the alignment of the H appears on the first available sonorant candidate. • A phonological secondary association of the H tone to a syllable (as in e.g. Prieto & Torreira 2007) would mean re-alignment of the H with the first available vowel. • The L*+Hdel alignment pattern offers strong evidence that the association of the H tone is phonetic not phonological. • Future Work • What is the role of vocalic lengthening (should the finding persist and become statistically significant in all data) in the syllabic structure of NG and how does that influence peak alignment? • Instances of incomplete vocalic deletion – if alignment is the phonetic reflex of the H tone, the residual vowel should attract the H peak? • A continuum was found in terms of the H alignment, according to which L+H*(focus) has the H within V0, L*+Hdel within the V0, but towards its end, or within C0, and L*+H within V1. Are these perceptually distinct? References Arvaniti, A., Ladd, D. R. & Mennen, I. (1998). Stability of tonal alignment: the case of Greek prenuclear accents. Journal of Phonetics 26:3-25. Ladd, D. R. (2008). Intonational Phonology, 2nd Edition Cambridge University Press. Prieto, P. & Torreira, F. (2007). The segmental anchoring hypothesis revisited. Syllable structure and speech rate effects on peak timing in Spanish. Journal of Phonetics 35(4):473-500. Acknowledgments This research has been funded by SSF as a post-doctoral grant to the first author, and by a NSRF funded THALIS project (Vocalect), as a research grant to the second author. We thank our participants, and GiannisThemelis for help with data collection.