A preliminary report on prominence-dependent English phrase-final lengthening from an articulatory perspective

Abstract

The present articulatory study examined how phrase-final lengthening is modulated by location of lexical stress (ultimate, penultimate) and phrasal accent (accented, unaccented) in English. Results indicate that boundary-related lengthening is not invariantly governed by a local slowing down of articulatory movement in the vicinity of phrase boundary, but rather modulated by its interaction with the prominence system of the language.