A cross-linguistic study of accentual lengthening:: Dutch vs. English

Close examination of studies concerned with the distribution of accentual lengthening in Dutch and English reveals that the differences previously found between these two languages may be the result of different experimental designs. Results of new experiments on Dutch using the same conditions as were used in the English experiments indicate that these two languages are indeed more similar than they were previously thought to be; in both languages, all syllables within an accented word are lengthened to some degree, as compared to a baseline unaccented condition, however a greater amount of lengthening is found on an adjacent syllable to the right of the pitch accented syllable than on an adjacent syllable to the left. Furthermore, the data suggest that only the boundaries of syllables and of (syntactic) words influence the distribution of accentual lengthening. (C) 1999 Academic Press.