Re: [tied] Stress.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 8798
Date: 2001-08-28

The main acoustic correlates of "strength" are pitch (the fundamental frequency and its modulations), intensity (relative loudness) and duration (a strong syllable may be longer than a weak one, other things being equal). Strength may also correlate with phonological prominence, e.g. "full" vowel quality (often a full range of vowel contrasts is permissible under stress only, which means that vowels are pronounced more "distinctly", or in a more controlled way, in that environment) or extra consonantal strength (in most English accents, for instance, fortis stops are perceptibly aspirated in the onset of a stressed syllable, which reinforces the impression of a stronger initiatory burst). Some of these cues may be absent in a particular case, but primary stress typically requires the simultaneous occurrence of all the acoustic signals available, especially of a pitch movement (constituting the so-called nuclear intonation of a phrase). Of course in a language that employs the fundamental frequency for different purposes (tone, pitch accent), it's less freely available as a cue for stress.
 
(The fundamental frequency is what we normally perceive as the basic pitch of a sound.)
 
Piotr
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Harald Hammarstrom
To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 5:49 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Stress.

What exactly is this 'rhythmic strength' physically ? Pitch accents has
to do with frequency of the sound wave in question (I presume) ?