The impact of phrasal position and stress type on f0

Abstract

Stress in the Russian language is traditionally considered to be primarily quantitative. The role of other acoustic parameters, F0 in particular, involved in producing the prominence effect, has not been sufficiently covered. Unlike duration and intensity, F0 of stressed vowels is subject to greater fluctuations caused by the variability of the intonation contour of an utterance. Thus, the functioning of F0 parameters of both neutral and emphatic stress is of special interest. The article sets out to analyze the impact of phrasal position and stress type on F0 parameters of the Russian stressed vowel [a]. For this aim F0 maximum, F0 mean and F0 range of the vowel are studied. The speech material for analysis comprises the word ‘Stas’ embedded in the carrier phrase ‘Stas ne byl tihoney’ (‘Stas was not quiet’) with the target word occupying initial, medial and final positions in the phrase; in each position the word was uttered 20 times with neutral and emphatic stress by two Russian males and two females. The PRAAT software was used to extract the F0 parameters of the sound [a] in the word ‘Stas’. The Student paired t-test was used to note the significance of difference between neutrally and emphatically stressed vowels in different phrasal positions. An explanation for the results obtained is suggested.