Interaction between rhythmic structure and preboundary lengthening in Japanese

Abstract

This study examines preboundary lengthening (henceforth PBL) in Japanese, focusing on how its rhythmic characteristics influence the low-level temporal realization of PBL. Disyllabic words with various moraic structures and pitch accent patterns were produced in the phrase-final vs. –medial positions. Results show a general progressive lengthening as the segments get closer to the boundary. The domain of PBL appears to be better accounted for by the syllable structure as PBL is robust at the final rhyme regardless of the moraic structure within a syllable. The moraic structure, however, does influence the distribution of PBL by showing some attraction of PBL towards the wordmedial moraic consonant. In addition, the words with initial pitch accent show much less lengthening at the final rhyme than those without pitch accent. Taken together, the results suggest that Japanese PBL is not only governed by the physical temporal constraints, but further modulated by language-specific rhythmic structure.