The timing of nuclear falls: Evidence from Dutch, West Frisian, Dutch Low Saxon, German Low Saxon, and High German

Abstract A reading experiment was designed to examine the effects of word boundaries and metrical structure on the temporal alignment of the accentual peak and the end of the fall in nuclear rising-falling accents. Participants were speakers of a number of closely related dialects and languages from the coastal area of the Netherlands and North-West Germany, covering Zeelandic Dutch, Hollandic Dutch, West Frisian, Dutch Low Saxon, German Low Saxon, and Northern High German. Our findings suggest that in no variety is the timing of the nuclear peak or the end of the fall systematically affected by the location of the final word boundary or that of the following stress. In most cases, the accentual peak was found to be stably aligned with the beginning of the nuclear accented syllable, while the end of the fall occurred at a fairly constant distance from the preceding F0 peak. These findings do not support a representation of the nuclear fall by a sequence of a high accentual tone and a ‘phrase accent’ that is secondarily associated to a postnuclear stress. In addition, we found substantial cross-linguistic variation in the overall timing of the beginning and end of the fall. One component in this variation is a geographically gradient shift in the alignment of the pitch gesture.