AN INVESTIGATION OF ARTICULATORY CORRELATES OF THE ACCENTUAL PHRASE IN FRENCH

This study examines the articulatory correlates of a prosodic entity, the Accentual Phrase (AP), based on a linguistic model of French prosody. The AP, features an initial high tone Hi, or the peak of the ‘accent secondaire’, a final high tone H*, also called the peak of the ‘accent primaire’, and two low L tones preceding them. Several sentences containing four-syllables target words (APs), were recorded using EMA. Position of the word in the sentence was varied and different speaking conditions were elicited. Displacement, peak velocity and movement duration are analyzed for the vertical position of the tongue-middle. The results suggest that LHi could be related to hyper-articulation of the first or second syllable, and LH* to even stronger hyperarticulation of the last syllable. When contrastive emphasis is present on the AP, the initial hyper-articulation can become as strong as, and even stronger than, the final one.