Vowel-length contrasts and phonetic cues to stress: an investigation of their relation

The functional load hypothesis of Berinstein (1979) put forward the idea that languages which use a suprasegmental property (duration, F0) contrastively will not use it to realise stress. The functional load hypothesis is often cited when stress correlates are discussed, both when it is observed tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Phonology 2017-12, Vol.34 (3), p.565-580
Main Authors: Lunden, Anya, Campbell, Jessica, Hutchens, Mark, Kalivoda, Nick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Cues
Eskimo Aleut Languages
Fundamental frequency
Hungarian
Hypotheses
Phonemes
Phonemics
Phonetics
Phonology
Speech duration
Stimuli
Stress
Suprasegmentals
Vowels
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Summary:The functional load hypothesis of Berinstein (1979) put forward the idea that languages which use a suprasegmental property (duration, F0) contrastively will not use it to realise stress. The functional load hypothesis is often cited when stress correlates are discussed, both when it is observed that the language under discussion follows the hypothesis and when it fails to follow it. In the absence of a more wide-ranging assessment of how frequently languages do or do not conform to the functional load hypothesis, it is unknown whether it is an absolute, a strong tendency, a weak tendency or unsupported. The results from a database of reported stress correlates and use of contrastive duration for 140 languages are presented and discussed. No support for the functional load hypothesis is found.
ISSN:0952-6757
1469-8188
DOI:10.1017/S0952675717000288