The Spanish intonation of speakers of a Basque pitch-accent dialect

Abstract

In this paper the main aspects of the intonation of broad focus declaratives in Lekeitio Spanish are described and analyzed. In this variety, accents are realized as pitch rises rather than falls, similarly to Standard Peninsular Spanish and unlike in Lekeitio Basque, the other native language of these speakers. Accentual valleys are aligned before the onset of the stressed syllable, except in final position in the utterance. Accentual peaks are aligned before the offset of the accented syllable, with an earlier alignment in accents in the object phrase. At the end of the subject phrase, peaks display later alignment. The number of unstressed syllables intervening between accents seems to affect F0 valley and peak alignment for certain positions. For non-object positions, F0 valleys align earlier as more unstressed syllables intervene between accents, and for the final position in the subject, F0 peaks align later as more unstressed syllables intervene between accents.

Keywords

• Spanish intonation
• bitonal accents
• peak alignment