Boundary-related durations in modern Greek

Abstract

This paper investigates the influence of prosodic boundary strength on the temporal organisation of speech. It tests whether Modern Greek (MG) exhibits pre- and postboundary lengthening, and whether the lengthening effect decays gradually the further away from the boundary, or is attracted to stressed syllables, even if those are not in the proximity of the boundary. It is shown that MG exhibits pre-boundary lengthening, which is at its strongest on the pre-boundary syllable, followed in strength by the stressed syllable, and is least pronounced on the intervening unstressed syllables. No clear post-boundary lengthening effects were identified.