Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T23:15:08.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Prosodic prominence in a stressless language: An acoustic investigation of Indonesian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2021

ANGELIKI ATHANASOPOULOU Open the ORCID record for ANGELIKI ATHANASOPOULOU [Opens in a new window] ,
IRENE VOGEL  and
NADYA PINCUS
ANGELIKI ATHANASOPOULOU
Affiliation:
School of Languages, Linguistics, Literatures and Cultures, University of Calgary, Craigie Hall D310, 2500 University Dr. N.W., Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4, [email protected]
IRENE VOGEL
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Delaware, 125 E Main St., Newark, DE19711, [email protected]@udel.edu
NADYA PINCUS
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Delaware, 125 E Main St., Newark, DE19711, [email protected]@udel.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although it has been proposed that all languages may have some lexical stress property, recent studies of (Standard) Indonesian have concluded, based primarily on perception, that lexical stress is not present in this language. While it is philosophically problematic to prove the non-existence of a phenomenon, we examine data from a large-scale production study for both direct and indirect evidence of stress, contributing to the growing body of literature in this field. In the first case, evidence is sought that indicates that a particular syllable in a word exhibits acoustic properties typically associated with prominence (i.e. fundamental frequency (f0), duration, intensity, vowel quality). In the second case, evidence of enhancement of these properties on a particular syllable under focus is sought, for a more abstract stress property that is not overtly manifested at the word level. Although we find no evidence of lexical prominence, we observe acoustic patterns consistent with a higher level prominence corresponding to focus, manifested by strong (Intonational Phrase) boundary properties. Overall, our findings reveal that there is strong support for a class of languages lacking lexical stress, and in the absence of a stressed syllable to enhance, focus may be manifested prosodically as boundary properties.

Keywords

focusIndonesianproductionstressstressless languagestypology
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , November 2021 , pp. 695 - 735
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We would like to thank Yosephine Susanto, Yanti, Lanny Hidajat, and Yohana Veniranda for their invaluable help in constructing and running our experiment in Jakarta, all the individuals who participated in the experiment, and the three anonymous Journal of Linguistics referees. This work was supported by a summer grant to the authors by the University of Delaware.

References

REFERENCES

Adank, Patti, Smits, Roel & van Hout, Roeland. 2004. A comparison of vowel normalization procedures for language variation research. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 116(5), 3099–3107. doi:10.1121/1.1795335.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Altmann, Heidi. 2006. The perception and production of second language stress: A cross-linguistic experimental study. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Delaware.Google Scholar
Arvaniti, Amalia, Ladd, D. Robert, & Mennen, Ineke. 2006. Phonetic effects of focus and “tonal crowding” in intonation: Evidence from Greek polar questions. Speech Communication 48.6, 667–696.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Mary E. 1986. Stress and non-stress accent. Dordrecht: Foris. doi:10.1515/9783110874020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckman, Mary E. & Edwards, Jan. 1994. Articulatory evidence for differentiating stress categories. In Keating, Patricia A. (ed.), Phonological structure and phonetic form: Papers in Laboratory Phonology III, 7–33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511659461.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David. 2016. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [computer program]. http://www.praat.org.Google Scholar
Chen, Aoju. 2003. Language dependence in continuation intonation. In Maria-Josep Solé, Daniel Recasens & Joaquín Romero (eds.), Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XV), 1069–1072. Barcelona: Causal Productions Pty Ltd.Google Scholar
Chen, Aoju. 2009. Language-specificity in the perception of continuation intonation. In Gussenhoven, Carlos & Riad, Tomas (eds.), Experimental studies in word and sentence prosody, 107–142. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110207576.1.107.Google Scholar
Cohn, Abigail C. 1989. Stress in Indonesian and bracketing paradoxes. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 7.2, 167–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, Laura J. 2008. Focus and prominence in Chichewa, Chitumbuka and Durban Zulu. ZAS Papers in Linguistics 49, 47–65. doi:10.21248/zaspil.49.2008.363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Downing, Laura J. 2010. Accent in African languages. In van der Hulst, Harry, Goedemans, Rob & Zanten, Ellen van (eds.), A survey of word accentual patterns in the languages of the world, 381–428. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110198966.1.381.Google Scholar
Downing, Laura J. 2013. Rethinking the universality of the Stress–Focus correlation. In Legère, Karsten (ed.), Bantu languages and linguistics: Papers in Memory of Dr. Rugatari Mekacha, D. K., 47–67. Bayreuth: BASS.Google Scholar
Downing, Laura J. & Hyman, Larry. 2016. Information Structure in Bantu. In Féry, Caroline & Ishihara, Shinichiro (eds.), The Oxford handbook of information structure, 790–813. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199642670.001.0001.Google Scholar
Downing, Laura J. & Pompino-Marschall, Bernd. 2013. The focus prosody of Chichewa and the Stress–Focus constraint: A response to Samek-Lodovici (2005). Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31, 47–681. doi:10.1007/s11049-013-9192-x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Féry, Caroline. 2013. Focus as prosodic alignment. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 31, 683–734. doi:10.1007/s11049-013-9195-7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Féry, Caroline. 2017. Intonation and prosodic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781139022064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frota, Sónia. 2012. Prosodic structure, constituents and their implementaion. In Cohn, Abigail C., Fougeron, Cécile & Huffman, Marie K. (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Laboratory Phonology, 255–265. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Goedemans, Rob & van Zanten, Ellen. 2007. Stress and accent in Indonesian. In van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Prosody in Indonesian languages, 35–62. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Goedemans, Rob & van Zanten, Ellen. 2014. No stress typology. In Caspers, Johanneke, Chen, Yiya, Heeren, Willemijn, Pacilly, Jos, Schiller, Niels O. & Zanten, Ellen van (eds.), Above and beyond the segments: Experimental linguistics and phonetics, 83–95. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/z.189.07goe.Google Scholar
Gussenhoven, Carlos. 2004. The phonology of tone and intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halim, Amran. 1974. Intonation in relation to syntax in Bahasa Indonesia. Jakarta: Djambatan.Google Scholar
Halim, Amran. 1981. Intonation in relation to syntax in Indonesian. Canberra: The Australian National University. doi:10.15144/PL-D36.cover.Google Scholar
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. 2018. Some preliminary observations on prosody and information structure in Austronesian languages of Indonesia and East Timor. In Riesberg, Sonja, Shiohara, Asako & Utsumi, Atsuko (eds.), Perspectives on information structure in Austronesian languages, 347–374. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi:10.5281/zenodo.1402555.Google Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. 2006. Word-prosodic typology. Phonology 23, 225–257. doi:10.1017/S0952675706000893.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyman, Larry M. 2009. How (not) to do phonological typology: The case of pitch-accent. Language Sciences 31.2–3, 213–238. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2008.12.007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jun, Sun-Ah. 2005. Prosodic typology: The phonology of intonation and phrasing. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jun, Sun-Ah. 2014. Prosodic typology II: The phonology of intonation and phrasing. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaland, Constantijn. 2018. Spectral tilt as a correlate of Papuan Malay word stress. Katarzyna Klessa, Jolanta Bachan, Agnieszka Wagner, Maciej Karpiński & Daniel Śledziński (eds.), Proceeding of the 9th International Conference on Speech Prosody 2018, 339–343. doi:10.21437/SpeechProsody.2018-69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert. 1996. Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laksman, Myrna. 1994. Location of stress in Indonesian words and sentences. In Odé, Cecilia, van Heuven, Vincent & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Experimental studies of Indonesian prosody, 108–139. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Lobanov, Boris M. 1971. Classification of Russian vowels spoken by different speakers. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 49(2B), 606–608. doi:10.1121/1.1912396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maskikit-Essed, Raechel & Gussenhoven, Carlos. 2016. No stress, no pitch accent, no prosodic focus: The case of Ambonese Malay. Phonology 33, 353–389. doi:10.1017/S0952675716000154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Vogel, Irene. 1986/2007. Prosodic phonology. Dordrecht: Foris.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odé, Cecilia. 1994. On the perception of prominence in Indonesian. In Odé, Cecilia, van Heuven, Vincent & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Experimental studies of Indonesian prosody, 27–107. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon & Dupoux, Emmanuel. 2002. A typological study of stress ‘deafness’. In Gussenhoven, Carlos & Warner, Natasha (eds.), Laboratory Phonology 7, 203–240. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Peperkamp, Sharon, Vendelin, Inga & Dupoux, Emmanuel. 2010. Perception of predictable stress: A cross-linguistic investigation. Journal of Phonetics 38.3, 422–430. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2010.04.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet & Beckman, Mary E.. 1988. Japanese tone structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet & Hirschberg, Julia B.. 1990. The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. In Cohen, Philip R., Morgan, Jerry & Pollack, Martha E. (eds.), Intentions in communication, 271–311. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Prentice, Jack. 1994. Manado Malay: Product and agent of language change. In Dutton, Tom & Tryon, Darrell T. (eds.), Language contact and language change in the Austronesian world, 411–441. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110883091.411.Google Scholar
Rahmani, Hamed, Rietveld, Toni & Gussenhoven, Carlos. 2015. Stress “deafness” reveals absence of lexical marking of stress or tone in the adult grammar. PLoS ONE 10.12, e0143968. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0143968.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Remijsen, Bert. 2007. Lexical tone in Magey Matbat. In van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Prosody in Indonesian languages, 9–34. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Roettger, Timo B., Bruggeman, Anna & Grice, Martine. 2015. Word stress in Tashlhiyt: Post lexical prominence in disguise? In The Scottish Consortium for ICPhS 2015 (ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVIII). Glasgow: The University of Glasgow.Google Scholar
Roosman, Lilie. 2006. Phonetic experiments on the word and sentence prosody of Betawi Malay and Toba Batak. Ph.D. dissertation, Leiden University.Google Scholar
Roosman, Lilie. 2007. Melodic structure in Toba Batak and Betawi Malay word prosody. In van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Prosody in Indonesian languages, 89–115. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
Sluijter, Agaath M. C. & van Heuven, Vincent J.. 1996. Spectral balance as an acoustic correlate for linguistic stress. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 100, 2471–2485. doi:10.1121/1.417955.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stoel, Ruben. 2007. The intonation of Manado Malay. In van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Prosody in Indonesian languages, 117–150. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
van der Hulst, Harry. 2010. Word accent: Terms, typologies and theories. In van der Hulst, Harry, Goedemans, Rob & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), A survey of word accentual patterns in the languages of the world, 3–53. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110198966.1.3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J. & Faust, Vera. 2009. Are Indonesians sensitive to contrastive accentuation below the word level? Wacana: Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia 11.2, 226–240. doi:10.17510/24076899-01102002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J., Roosman, Lilie & van Zanten, Ellen. 2008. Betawi Malay word prosody. Lingua 118.9, 1271–1287. doi:10.1016/j.lingua.2007.09.005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen. 1997. Effects of substrate language on the localization and perceptual evaluation of pitch movements in Indonesian. In Cecilia Odé & Wim Stokhof (eds.), Proceedings of the seventh International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, 63–79. Amsterdam: Brill/Rodopi.Google Scholar
van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen. 2007. Prosody in Indonesian languages. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen & Goedemans, Rob. 2007. A functional typology of Austronesian and Papuan stress systems. In van Heuven, Vincent J. & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), Prosody in Indonesian languages, 63–88. Leiden: Leiden University.Google Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen & Goedemans, Rob. 2009. Prominence in Indonesian: Stress, phrases, and boundaries. Wacana: Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia 11.2, 197–225. doi:10.17510/wjhi.v11i2.158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen, Goedemans, Rob & Pacilly, Jos. 2003. The status of word stress in Indonesian. In van de Weijer, Jeroen, van Heuven, Vincent J. & van der Hulst, Harry (eds.), The phonological spectrum, vol. II: Suprasegmental structure , 151–175. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/cilt.234.11zan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen, Stoel, Ruben & Remijsen, Bert. 2010. Stress types in Austronesian languages. In Goedemans, Rob, van der Hulst, Harry & van Zanten, Ellen (eds.), A survey of word accentual patterns in the languages of the world, 87–112. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110198966.1.87.Google Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen & van Heuven, Vincent J.. 1998. Word stress in Indonesian: Its communicative relevance. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde [Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia] 154.1, 129–149. doi:10.1163/22134379-90003908.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Zanten, Ellen & van Heuven, Vincent J.. 2004. Word stress in Indonesian: Fixed or free? NUSA Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and other Languages of Indonesia 53, 1–20.Google Scholar
Vogel, Irene. 2009. The status of the clitic group. In Grijzenhout, Janet & Kabak, Baris (eds.), Phonological domains: Universals and deviations, 15–46. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. doi:10.1515/9783110217100.1.15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Irene, Athanasopoulou, Angeliki & Pincus, Nadya. 2015. Acoustic properties of prominence in Hungarian and the Functional Load Hypothesis. In Katalin É. Kiss, Balázs Surányi & Éva Dékány (eds.), Approaches to Hungarian, vol. 14: Papers from the 2013 Piliscsaba Conference, 267–292. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/atoh.14.11vog.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Irene, Athanasopoulou, Angeliki & Pincus, Nadya. 2016. Prominence, contrast, and the Functional Load Hypothesis: An acoustic investigation. In Heinz, Jeff, Goedemans, Rob & van der Hulst, Harry (eds.), Dimensions of phonological stress, 123–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781316212745.006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vogel, Irene, Athanasopoulou, Angeliki & Pincus, Nadya. 2017. Acoustic properties of prominence and foot structure in Arabic. In Ouali, Hamid (ed.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXIX: Papers from the Annual Symposium on Arabic Linguistics, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2015, 55–88. Amsterdam & Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. doi:10.1075/sal.5.04vog.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winn, Matthew, Blodgett, Allison, Bauman, Jessica, Bowles, Anita, Charters, Lykara, Rytting, Anton & Shamoo, Jessica. 2008. Vietnamese monophthong vowel production by native speakers and American adult learners. Proceedings of the Acoustics 2008, Paris, 6127–6132.Google Scholar
Xu, Yi. 2011. Post-focus compression: Cross-linguistic distribution and historical origin. In Wai-Sum Lee & Eric Zee (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS XVII), 152–155. Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Xu, Yi, Chen, Szu-Wei & Wang, Bei. 2012. Prosodic focus with and without post-focus compression: A typological divide within the same language family? The Linguistic Review 29.1, 131–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar