The interaction between lexical prominence and pre-boundary lengthening in Japanese

Pre-boundary lengthening, also known as phrase-final lengthening, is a well-established phenomenon. In stress languages, pre-boundary lengthening has been shown to interact with lexical prominence (i.e., stress), affecting the boundary-adjacent constriction gestures in stress-final words, but being attracted towards the stressed syllable when stress is non-final. However, the interaction between pre-boundary lengthening and lexical prominence in a language with lexical pitch accent, like Japanese, is not well understood. The current study uses kinematic data collected with Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) to investigate this interaction in Japanese. We examine pre-boundary lengthening in trisyllabic phrase-final words as a factor of pitch accent position (initial-accented, medial-accented, final-accented, and no accent). Preliminary results based on duration measurements of the consonant constriction gestures comprising the phrase-final words show that in words with no pitch accent, pre-boundary lengthening has a progressive effect extending two syllables away from the right edge of the phrase, being strongest in the word-final syllable. If pitch accent is present, pre-boundary lengthening is affected by the former’s position. The lengthening effect is limited to the final syllable in initial- and medial-accented words, and disappears in final-accented words. Typological dimensions of the interaction between prominence and boundaries are discussed. [Work supported by NSF.]