This paper investigates the realization of the Accentual Phrase (AP) in Lifou French by bilingual speakers of Drehu and French. In French prominence is marked within a phrasal domain and the AP represents the lowest tonally marked prosodic constituent. Although still controversial, increasingly, there have been contributions arguing for a further prosodic level, the intermediate phrase (ip) between the AP and the Intonation Phrase (IP). In this study, it is shown that Lifou French uses the same tonal patterns as found for Standard French. Additionally, further evidence for the existence of another prosodic level after the AP is found. However, while in Standard French an increased F0 rise and final vowel lengthening have been shown to mark the ip-boundary, an expanded pitch span represents the more salient cue to mark this in Lifou French.
Cite as: Torres, C., Fletcher, J., Wigglesworth, G. (2018) Acoustic correlates of the French Accentual Phrase in Lifou (New Caledonia). Proc. Speech Prosody 2018, 636-640, doi: 10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-129
@inproceedings{torres18_speechprosody,
author={Catalina Torres and Janet Fletcher and Gillian Wigglesworth},
title={{Acoustic correlates of the French Accentual Phrase in Lifou (New Caledonia)}},
year=2018,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2018},
pages={636--640},
doi={10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-129}
}