Unveiling Tonal Contrasts in the Baltic Region: Exploring Stød in Livonian Spontaneous Speech

Abstract

This paper presents findings for the tonal contrast and phonation differences between words with and without stød in Livonian spontaneous speech. Livonian differentiates between two contrastive phonological tones: the broken tone or stød and the plain tone. Stød is similar to the Danish stød in some respects and is said to be part of the tone systems of the phonologies of languages in the Baltic region. The findings show that the tonal contrast between words with and without stød tends to be neutralised in Livonian spontaneous speech, but there are individual differences between speakers and also differences between men and women. The most common non-modal phonation period categories in words with stød are creaky and tense. The results also indicate that stød disappears when the word has no prominence.

Keywords

• livonian; fundamental frequency; generalized additive models; stød; non-modal phonation; prominence; spontaneous speech