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  • Title: Seeking an Anchorage. Stability and Variability in Tonal Alignment of Rising Prenuclear Pitch Accents in Cypriot Greek.
    Author: Themistocleous C.
    Journal: Lang Speech; 2016 Dec; 59(4):433-461. PubMed ID: 28008803.
    Abstract:
    Although tonal alignment constitutes a quintessential property of pitch accents, its exact characteristics remain unclear. This study, by exploring the timing of the Cypriot Greek L*+H prenuclear pitch accent, examines the predictions of three hypotheses about tonal alignment: the invariance hypothesis, the segmental anchoring hypothesis, and the segmental anchorage hypothesis. The study reports on two experiments: the first of which manipulates the syllable patterns of the stressed syllable, and the second of which modifies the distance of the L*+H from the following pitch accent. The findings on the alignment of the low tone (L) are illustrative of the segmental anchoring hypothesis predictions: the L persistently aligns inside the onset consonant, a few milliseconds before the stressed vowel. However, the findings on the alignment of the high tone (H) are both intriguing and unexpected: the alignment of the H depends on the number of unstressed syllables that follow the prenuclear pitch accent. The 'wandering' of the H over multiple syllables is extremely rare among languages, and casts doubt on the invariance hypothesis and the segmental anchoring hypothesis, as well as indicating the need for a modified version of the segmental anchorage hypothesis. To address the alignment of the H, we suggest that it aligns within a segmental anchorage-the area that follows the prenuclear pitch accent-in such a way as to protect the paradigmatic contrast between the L*+H prenuclear pitch accent and the L+H* nuclear pitch accent.
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