A LEXICAL AND POST-LEXICAL PROSODIC DOCUMENTATION OF EMBALOH LANGUAGE

Abstract

This research investigated the prosody of the Embaloh language, which has yet to be widely explored, to document and preserve the language. The method used is data collection of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speeches from 12 native speakers. Prosodic analysis was then carried out based on visualising and observing speech sound waves using the autosegmental-metrical theory (AM) framework. The results show that prominence tends to be on the right edge at both lexical and post-lexical prosodic levels. The findings show that the Embaloh language is outside the mainstream of Austronesian languages, which places word stress at the penultimate syllable. At the post-lexical level in interrogative intonation, phrases with a question word are marked by the pitch accent located at the target question word in the nuclear contour of the phrase. The pitch accent follows the position of the question word in the intonation phrase, forward or backward, with one of the following tones: H* (high), LH* (low-high), or LHL* (low-high-low). The intonation of the question is indicated by the H(high) tone at the end of the phrase. The H (high) tone also acts as a boundary tone represented by H*% (high).

Keywords

• intonation
• prosody
• lexical
• post-lexical
• Embaloh