Acoustic correlates of word stress in Papuan Malay

The current study investigates acoustic correlates of word stress in Papuan Malay. This language is claimed to exhibit word stress, although empirical evidence is lacking. Moreover, related languages have been shown not to have stress, counter to earlier claims. Studies on stress in Austronesian languages have furthermore struggled to separate phrase level intonation phenomena from word level stress. The current study investigates a set of twelve potential acoustic correlates of stress, covering spectral, temporal and amplitudinal aspects of the speech signal. The measurements are taken from spontaneous Papuan Malay narratives. A subsequent comprehensive acoustic analysis was carried out and designed to avoid common pitfalls in the study of word stress. Results indicate that measures of duration, formant displacement and spectral tilt provide consistent evidence for the production of word stress in Papuan Malay. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.