School of Languages and Linguistics - Research Publications

Permanent URI for this collection

http://hdl.handle.net/11343/392

Filters

2002 - 2008 2
2
Reset filters

Settings
Statistics
Citations
Author: EVANS, NICHOLAS × Author: Fletcher, Janet ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Big words, small phrases: Mismatches between pause units and the polysynthetic word in Dalabon
    EVANS, N ; FLETCHER, J ; ROSS, BB (Mouton de Gruyter, 2008)
    This article uses instrumental data from natural speech to examine the phenomenon of pause placement within the verbal word in Dalabon, a polysynthetic Australian language of Arnhem Land. Though the phenomenon is incipient and in two sample texts occurs in only around 4% of verbs, there are clear possibilities for interrupting the grammatical word by pause after the pronominal prefix and some associated material at the left edge, though these within-word pauses are significantly shorter, on average, than those between words. Within-word pause placement is not random, but is restricted to certain affix boundaries; it requires that the paused-after material be at least dimoraic, and that the remaining material in the verbal word be at least disyllabic. Bininj Gun-wok, another polysynthetic language closely related to Dalabon, does not allow pauses to interrupt the verbal word, and the Dalabon development appears to be tied up with certain morphological innovations that have increased the proportion of closed syllables in the pronominal prefix zone of the verb. Though only incipient and not yet phonologized, pause placement in Dalabon verbs suggests a phonology-driven route by which polysynthetic languages may ultimately become less morphologically complex by fracturing into smaller units.
  • Item
    No Preview Available
    An acoustic phonetic analysis of intonational prominence in two Australian languages
    FLETCHER, J ; EVANS, NRD (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
    The intonational typology of two Northern Australian languages, Dalabon and the Kundedjnjenghmi dialect of Bininj Gun-wok, suggests that these languages can be analyzed within the autosegmental-metrical framework of intonation as having two kinds of intonational events that serve to demarcate the boundaries of intonational phrases: pitch accents and boundary tones. Both languages have also previously been described as having lexical stress. In this study, the acoustic correlates of syllables associated with intonational pitch accents, were measured, namely, F0, duration, RMS amplitude and vowel quality, in one lengthy narrative text from each language. The duration of intonational phrase-final syllables was also measured. Results indicate that syllables associated with pitch accents are phonetically lengthened and have marginally higher RMS amplitude. However, there is little variation in vowel quality due to the presence of a pitch accent or intonational prominence. Final syllables are also lengthened at intonational phrase edges, indicating that duration is a cue to this level of prosodic constituency in these languages.