Segmental articulations across prosodic levels

This study deals with segmental articulations based on acceleration signals from EMA data. We test how well the one-to-one relationship between acceleration peaks and segment boundaries (as described within the framework of the Descriptive Approach to Segmental Articulations) works across different prosodic levels in Swedish, here: focused and unfocused position, with the assumption of a positive correlation of prominence level with segmental lengthening. Furthermore, we use forced alignment (the Montreal ForcedAligner), instead of manual segmentation, to collect landmarks on the acceleration signals. The result shows that the correlation between acceleration peaks and segment boundaries is even stronger in focus position, and that the pattern holds for both lips at /m/, tongue body at /a/, and tongue tip data at /n/ and /l/(although the tongue tip results were affected by analyzing them together). The study shows that the acceleration signal works well for forced alignment in Swedish, which creates strong arguments for the one-to-one relationship between acceleration peaks and acoustic segment boundaries, and in addition that it holds across different levels of prominence. Furthermore, the study prompts a deeper discussion of the relationship between acceleration and prominence as a result of articulatory effort.