The phonology and phonetics of prenuclear and nuclear accents in French

Authors

  • Mariapaola D’Imperio Laboratoire Parole et Langage – UMR 6057 CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France Author
  • Roxane Bertrand Laboratoire Parole et Langage – UMR 6057 CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France Author
  • Albert Di Cristo Université de Provence and Laboratoire Parole et Langage - UMR 6057 CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France Author
  • Cristel Portes Université de Provence and Laboratoire Parole et Langage - UMR 6057 CNRS, Aix-en-Provence, France Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2006/01/0024/000024

Abstract

The goal of this paper was to determine whether there is a formal difference between high-ending nuclear (IP-final) and prenuclear accents in French. After transcribing the relevant items, we then compared the different accentual and phrasal categories by analyzing, among the other things, the tonal and temporal characteristics of their tonal targets as well as durational characteristics of the target syllables. The hy-pothesis tested is that nuclear accents differ from prenuclear ones in terms of formal characteristics of the contour which cannot be explained, for instance, by invoking the presence or absence of an upcoming tone. We show that both alignment and scaling differences can be found between the two accents types, thus motivating a contrastive phonological analysis.

 

References

Di Cristo, A. 1999. Le cadre accentual du français contemporain: essai de modélisation. Langues 2(3): 184-205, 2(4): 258-267.

D’Imperio, M., Bertrand, R., Di Cristo, A. and Portes, C. 2006. The phonology and phonetics of prenuclear and nuclear accents in French, LSRL 2006, Rutgers, New Jersey, March 31-April 2, 2006.

D’Imperio, M., Espesser, R., Loevenbruck, H., Menezes, C., Welby, P. et Nguyen, N. (in press). Are tones aligned with articulatory events? Evidence from Italian and French. In Cole, J. and Hualde, J. (eds.) Papers on Laboratory Phonology IX, Oxford : OUP Press.

Jun, S.-A. and Fougeron, C. 2002. Realizations of accentual phrase in French intonation. Probus 14, 147-172.

Portes, C. and Bertrand, R. 2005. Some cues about the interactional value of the “continuation” contour in French. Proceedings of IDP05, oct. 8-9, Aix-enProvence, France.

Post, B. 2000. Tonal and phrasal structures in French intonation, The Hague : Holland Academic graphics.

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Published

01-01-2006

Issue

Vol. 1 (2006): Proceedings of the 1st Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics

Section

Proceedings Papers

License

Copyright (c) 2006 Mariapaola D’Imperio (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.

How to Cite

The phonology and phonetics of prenuclear and nuclear accents in French. (2006). Linguistic Proceedings Series, 1(1), 121-124. https://doi.org/10.36505/ExLing-2006/01/0024/000024