Dimitrova Turk 2012 Patterns of Accentual Lengthening in English Four-Syllable Word

Patterns of accentual lengthening in English four-syllable words
Snezhina Dimitrova
a,b
, Alice Turk
a,n,1
a
Linguistics and English Language, University of Edinburgh, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD Scotland, UK
b
Department of English and American Studies, University of Soa St Kliment Ohridski, 15 Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd., Soa 1504, Bulgaria
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 October 2010
Received in revised form
23 February 2012
Accepted 24 February 2012
Available online 20 March 2012
a b s t r a c t
Previous work on English disyllabic and trisyllabic words cannot distinguish two types of views on
accentual lengthening: (1) phrasal accent affects a single, multisyllabic domain (the entire word), vs.
(2) phrasal accent affects multiple, potentially separate, domains (e.g., the primary stressed syllable and
the nal syllable). In the present paper, we distinguish these views by examining the effect of phrasal
accent on the durational patterns of English four-syllable words. We studied words of three types, with
different positions of primary and secondary lexical stress: pattern 1000 (e.g.
"
presidency), pattern 2010
(e.g. "demo
"
cratic), and pattern 1020 (e.g.
"
suffo" cating). Our results show that accent-related lengthen-
ing can affect multiple, potentially distinct, sites: the primary-stressed syllable, the secondary-stressed
syllable rhyme (if the word has secondary stress), the onset of the word-initial syllable, and the nal
syllable. In addition, lengthening can spill over from a primary-stressed syllable onto a following
unstressed syllable. Patterns of accent-related lengthening on onsets vs. rhymes are qualitatively
different for stressed vs. word-edge sites, suggesting separate lengthening mechanisms.
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
This paper investigates the distribution of accentual lengthening
in contrastively accented four-syllable words of varying lexical
stress patterns in Scottish Standard English. Previous work has
shown that in an English disyllabic word such as bacon, both
syllables are longer when that word is contrastively accented, as
compared with the same word when unaccented. In a trisyllabic
word such as property, accent-related lengthening has been found to
extend throughout all three syllables (Turk & White, 1999), although
lengthening on the second syllable is reduced in magnitude as
compared to the rst and third syllables. These ndings do not make
it possible to distinguish between two views: (1) that accentual
lengthening affects a continuous domain, e.g. the whole word
(Sluijter, 1995; White, 2002), or a domain extending from a pitch
accent to the end of a word (Turk & White, 1999), or (2) the
alternative view that accentual lengthening affects a number of
distinct, separate domains, such as the lexically stressed syllable and
the unstressed syllable immediately following it, as well as the nal
syllable in a word. We therefore investigate patterns of durational
adjustment under contrastive focus in words of more than three
syllables, in which lexical stress is further removed from the end of
the word.
Prominence, or the (perceptual) salience of certain parts of an
utterance, is observed in many languages of the world, and is
associated with acoustic correlates such as greater acoustic inten-
sity, less spectral tilt, f0 peaks or valleys, more peripheral vowel
quality, and longer duration. The terminology used when discussing
prominence phenomena in speech is often ambiguous. In this paper,
lexical stress is used to describe the phonological strength patterning
of syllables within a polysyllabic word (note that this is often
referred to as word stress). We distinguish three degrees, or levels,
of lexical stress: primarythe main stress in a word, secondarythe
next level of stress below the primary, and unstressedthe weak
stress on syllables not having primary or secondary stress. The
surface phonetic properties of these syllables will depend on the
prosodic structure of the utterance in which the word occurs. For
example, if the word bears phrasal prominence, an intonational
pitch accent will be associated with a lexically stressed syllable, and
parts of the word will be lengthened.
Several different terms are used in the literature to denote
phrasal prominence. We use the term accent to refer to abstract
phrasal prominence, which can have many physical correlates.
Our focus in this paper is on the durational correlate of the type of
accent illustrated in (1), i.e. on contrastive accent (narrow
focus). In particular, we are interested in the distribution of this
correlate throughout the accented word.
(1) A: John lost his keys yesterday.
B: John lost his wallet yesterday.
In (1B), where contrastive phrasal accent occurs on wallet,
special highlighting is used to convey contrast with the word keys.
In particular, the primary lexical stress wa- of wallet bears an
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Journal of Phonetics
0095-4470/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2012.02.008
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: 44 131 650 3483; fax: 44 131 650 6883.
E-mail address: turk@ling.ed.ac.uk (A. Turk).
1
The authors are listed in alphabetical order.
Journal of Phonetics 40 (2012) 403418
intonational pitch accent, and both syllables of the word are
typically longer than they are in a non-phrasally prominent
contexts, e.g. as in (2B).
(2) A: John lost his wallet yesterday.
B: John found his wallet yesterday.
Our strategy is to compare the durational patterns of contras-
tively focused four-syllable words with the same words when
they are unaccented. The phenomenon of de-accenting in a
language like English typically affects contextually repeated
(given) information and is characterised in acoustic terms by
a shift of the pitch accent away from the lexically stressed syllable
of the repeated unit. In (2B), the word wallet will be unaccented as
evidenced by the shift of the pitch accent to the preceding verb.
The unaccented rendition of a word thus provides a baseline
against which temporal adjustments of the same word when
produced with a contrastive pitch accent can be compared.
Some authors distinguish the pragmatic focus domain the
linguistic unit which is being contrasted or corrected, and the
durational adjustment domain the linguistic unit whose
duration is adjusted under contrastive focus (Chen, 2006), also
called the locus by White (2002). While virtually any linguistic
unita sound, a syllable, a morpheme, a word, etc., can be
contrasted, the durational effects induced by such contrast are
not necessarily co-extensive with that unit.
It is traditional to refer to durational effects of prosodic
structure (prominence and boundaries) as lengthening, as if to
imply that there is a default, shorter, durational representation in
memory that speakers adjust (cf. e.g. Byrd & Saltzman, 2003).
Although we do not want to commit ourselves to such a view, we
will nevertheless follow tradition in referring to durational effects
of accent as lengthening.
We are interested in relatively long, four-syllable words
because they will allow us to distinguish the two theories
mentioned above, namely (1) that contrastive accent targets a
continuous domain (the Continuous Domain hypothesis) vs. (2)
that contrastive accent targets multiple targets within the word
(the Multiple Site hypothesis) (Turk & White, 1999). We discuss
these alternatives in more detail below.
2. Background
Previous research on contrastive accent has shown that the
durational effects of accent are not conned to a single segment
or syllable (Chen, 2006 for Chinese; Suomi, 2007 for Finnish;
Heldner & Strangert, 2001 for Swedish; Bouchhioua, 2007 for
Tunisian Arabic; Cambier-Langeveld & Turk, 1999; Eefting, 1991;
Nooteboom, 1972; Sluijter, 1995; Sluijter & van Heuven, 1995 for
Dutch; Sluijter, 1995; Turk & Sawusch, 1995, 1997; Turk &White,
1999 for English). In English, all segments in monosyllabic CVC
words (e.g. bake) can be longer when the word is accented than
when unaccented, although the effect of accent can be greater on
the onset than on the coda (Sluijter, 1995; Turk & Sawusch, 1995,
1997; Turk & White, 1999). Both syllables of disyllabic words (e.g.
"
bacon, en
"
force) can be longer when accented as compared to
unaccented, although magnitudes of lengthening on non-primary
stressed syllables differ depending on position: e.g. on of bacon
(nal and immediately following the primary stress, 13% length-
ening), shows greater lengthening effects than en- of enforce
(initial and immediately preceding the primary stress, 5% length-
ening, only reliable for some speakers).
The effect of accent appears to be inuenced by word boundary
location in two ways. First, the magnitude of accentual lengthening
is greater on the primary stressed syllable of monosyllabic words
than it is on the primary stressed syllable of disyllabic words.
Studies of the effect of accent on identical phoneme sequences such
as bake enforce vs. bacon force and there foursquare vs. therefore
square show 23% lengthening on monosyllabic words, e.g. bake in
bake enforce, there in there foursquare, and 16% lengthening on the
same syllables in disyllabic words, e.g. bac- in bacon force and there-
in therefore square (Turk & White, 1999; White & Turk, 2010).
Secondly, the stretch of speech affected by accent is inuenced by
word boundary location. In these homophonous sequences, the
magnitude of lengthening on segments or syllables adjacent to the
accented vowel is signicantly diminished if a word boundary
intervenes. For example, Turk and White (1999) showed a dura-
tional difference of only 4% on e.g. en- of bake enforce when bake was
accented as compared to when the sequence was unaccented. In
contrast, they found a much larger durational difference when no
word boundary intervened: e.g. on of bacon in bacon force was on
average 13% longer when bac- was accented, as compared to when
the sequence was unaccented. Studies of the effects of accent on
poly-morphemic words, e.g. therefore suggested that neither foot nor
morpheme boundaries block these effects; -fore of therefore showed
comparable accentual lengthening effects to on of bacon (13% in
Turk & White, 1999).
These results show that words are implicated in some way in the
description of the stretch of speech affected by contrastive accent in
English words. However, characterizing this stretch of speech is
difcult for several reasons. First, the affected segments are to some
extent speaker-specic: one of six speakers in Turk and Whites
(1999) study showed no evidence of accentual lengthening on
e.g. on of bacon, and magnitudes of lengthening varied considerably
across speakers. The small lengthening effects on initial syllables
(e.g. en- of enforce, four- of foursquare) were only present for some
speakers and, unlike effects for nal syllables, were not reliable in
by-Speaker analyses. Secondly, word boundaries appear to attenu-
ate, but not block, effects of accent on adjacent syllables. Small
effects on adjacent syllables across a word boundary have been
called spill over, or residual effects (Chen, 2006; Turk & White,
1999; White, 2002). When a lengthening effect is relatively small in
magnitude (ca. 5%), such as occurs for some speakers on initial
unstressed syllables (e.g. en- of enforce), it is difcult to know
whether it represents a type of residual effect (in this case
anticipatory), or should be evidence for a lengthening unit that
includes the affected syllable (cf. Sluijter, 1995; Turk & White, 1999;
White, 2002).
Another problem in characterizing the affected stretch of
speech relates to the fact that current ndings for disyllabic words
like bacon cannot distinguish between two theoretical possibilities:
(1) that accent affects a single, continuous polysyllabic domain
such as the word, or a unit that extends from the primary stressed
syllable until the end of the word (the Continuous Domain
hypothesis) or (2) that accent affects two potentially separate
lengthening sites, i.e. the primary stressed syllable and the nal
syllable (the Multiple Site hypothesis). On the latter view, the role
of accent is to highlight the word in two ways: (1) by making the
primary stressed syllable more prominent, and (2) by clearly
indicating the words boundaries, in this case through initial and
nal lengthening. Turk and Whites (1999) study of trisyllabic
words like catapult was designed to test these possibilities, but
results were ambiguous. They found lengthening on all three
syllables of these words, with lower magnitudes on the second
syllable. The fact that all syllables were lengthened seems to
support the Continuous Domain hypothesis, but the separate
lengthening site hypothesis is not ruled out, given the possibility
of spill-over effects on the second syllable. That is, contrastive
accent may have targeted multiple sites: the primary stressed
syllable, and the nal syllable, with an additional, lesser magni-
tude, spill-over effect on the second syllable. Whites (2002) results
S. Dimitrova, A. Turk / Journal of Phonetics 40 (2012) 403418 404
for e.g. "recom
"
mend and "predi
"
spose were similarly ambiguous. He
found signicant effects of accent on the rst and last syllables,
with a small effect (5%) on the medial syllable that was insignif-
icant by Subjects, but signicant by Items. On the multiple site
view, the small effect on the medial syllable could have been due to
either (1) a spill-over effect from the initial, secondary stressed
syllable, and/or (2) anticipation of the upcoming primary stressed
syllable.
The current experiments were designed to distinguish the
Continuous Domain vs. Multiple Site hypotheses using longer
words. Words such as
"
presidency, with primary lexical stress on
the rst syllable, have a longer stretch of unstressed syllables
between the primary stress and the nal syllable. A nding of no
lengthening on one or both of the intervening syllables would
support the Multiple Site hypothesis. On the other hand, a nding
of reliable lengthening on all four syllables would be more
consistent with the Continuous Domain hypothesis.
In the experiments reported in this paper, we test the dura-
tional effect of accent on two types of four-syllable words
containing a secondary stress, "demo
"
cratic-type words, with
secondary stress on the rst syllable and primary stress on the
third,
2
and
"
suffo" cating-type words, with secondary stress on the
third syllable and primary stress on the rst. These words will
show the extent to which the durational implementation of
phrasal accent differentiates between syllable types (primary vs.
secondary stress, secondary stress vs. unstressed). Turk and
Whites (1999) study of initial unstressed and initial secondary
stressed syllables (e.g. initial unstressed: en- of enforce, initial
secondary stressed: four- of foursquare) showed no evidence of
different effects of accent across unstressed vs. secondary stressed
syllables, but the small lengthening effects on these syllables
were found only for some subjects, and could be interpreted as
anticipatory effects from a lengthening domain that begins with
the primary stressed syllable. Alternatively, the similar behaviour
observed on the initial syllables in Turk and White (1999) across
secondary stressed vs. unstressed categories might be due to a
general tendency for English unstressed initial syllables to adopt
characteristics of secondary-stressed, full-vowel syllables (many
unstressed initial syllables have secondary stressed pronunciation
variants, e.g. /i/ or schwa in the rst syllable of report). Materials
in the current experiment were therefore designed to examine
the effect of accent on non-word-initial secondary stressed
syllables (e.g. the 3rd syllable in suffocating), in addition to the
effect on word-initial secondary stressed syllables (e.g. the rst
syllable in democratic), as tested in previous experiments.
In addition, if evidence favouring the Continuous Domain
hypothesis is found for presidency-pattern words, words like
suffocating and democratic will allow us to test possible denitions
of this domain, e.g. that the accentual lengthening domain starts
with the primary stressed syllable and extends to the end of the
word. On this view, we would expect little or no lengthening on
the rst two syllables of democratic, since primary stress is on the
3rd syllable cra-, but lengthening on all syllables in suffocating,
where primary stress is on the rst syllable su-. If the accentual
lengthening domain is the whole word, all word-types should
show accent-related lengthening on all syllables.
Finally, we also measure sub-syllabic durations in order to test
the view that lengthening demarcates the edges of focused
constituents: we call this the Edge Marking hypothesis. If the
role of lengthening on the nal syllable is to demarcate the word,
we would predict that the distribution of lengthening on that
syllable should mirror the distribution of lengthening found for
phrase-nal lengthening. That is, we would predict more length-
ening on the rhyme of the nal syllable than on its onset
(Berkovits, 1993a, 1993b, 1994; Cambier-Langeveld, 1997;
van Santen, 1994; Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2007; Wightman,
Shattuck-Hufnagel, Ostendorf, & Price, 1992). This pattern is
predicted for all three types of words in our study. Sub-syllabic
duration patterns may also reveal the presence of another type of
demarcative effect, initial lengthening (Fougeron & Keating, 1997;
Keating, 2006). Initial lengthening is expected to be localised on
initial consonants of the rst syllable in our target words. These
effects may be confounded with accentual lengthening in words
with initial lexical stress, e.g., presidency or suffocating, but may be
more evident in words with main stress on a non-initial syllable,
e.g., democratic, where accentual lengthening may be less likely
on a secondary stressed initial syllable (Cho & Keating, 2009).
The results of these experiments have potential implications
for theories of phonetic implementation. If we nd that lengthen-
ing affects a continuous domain extending from the primary
stressed syllable until the end of the word, our results will suggest
that a non-traditional prosodic unit, delimited on its left edge by a
primary stress and on its right edge by the end of the word, is
implicated in phonetic implementation. On the other hand, if
results support the Multiple Site hypothesis, they may suggest a
role for units approximately the size of syllables, or syllable sub-
components, e.g. syllable onsets and/or rhymes.
3. Methods
Since the methodology used in the experiments reported in
the present paper was the same for both, we will rst outline it,
and then proceed to a discussion of the experimental results for
each experiment.
3.1. Speakers
The same group of six native speakers of Scottish Standard
English took part in each of the experiments. Two of the speakers
were male and four were female. Their age at the time of
recording was between 19 and 51. They were paid for their
participation.
3.2. Test materials
Eleven four-syllable English words were selected for each
experiment. The words belonged to different grammatical cate-
gories and were not mono-morphemic, as previous research
suggests that morphological boundaries do not affect the dis-
tribution of accent-related durational effects (Turk & White,
1999).
The words used in Experiment 1 have lexical stress on their
initial syllable, followed by three unstressed syllables, e.g.,
"
presidency.
Their lexical stress pattern can be represented as 1000. Experi-
ment 2 focuses on four-syllable words with both primary and
secondary stress, e.g.,
"
suffo"cating, "demo
"
cratic. The lexical stress
patterns of these words can be represented as 1020 and 2010
respectively, where 1primary lexical stress, 2secondary stress,
and 0unstressed. Similar coding of lexical stress has been used by,
among others, Nakatani and Aston (1978).
The contexts in which the test words occurred consisted of an
item number followed by two sentences: a background sentence,
and a target sentence containing the target word. The aim of the
background sentence was to prompt a natural reading with either a
contrastive pitch accent on the target word, or with the target word
unaccented. We will refer to these two experimental conditions as
the contrastive or accented, and the unaccented condition,
2
Preliminary results for democratic-type words were presented in Turk and
Dimitrova (2007).
respectively. In the sentences in which the target words were
embedded, there were 46 syllables preceding, and 12 syllables
following each of the target words.
3.3. Recording
All recordings were made in the recording studio of the
Department of Linguistics and English Language, The University
of Edinburgh. The recordings were made directly to disk, using a
high-quality AKG CK98 hypercardoid condenser microphone.
They were digitised at a sample rate of 48 kHz and had 16-bit
quantisation.
Each item (item number, background sentence and target
sentence) was printed on a separate card, and the cards were
stacked in blocks (contrastive and unaccented, respectively).
The items were then pseudo-randomised within each block (by
card shufing). Subjects read through two repetitions of the entire
data set with different randomisations for each repetition for each
participant.
Before the start of the recording session, the speakers were
given instructions about the format and the manner of presenta-
tion of the reading materials. They were instructed to read aloud
all three items on each card at their normal tempo, trying not to
pause between words in the same sentence. The cards had no
highlighting of any kind to show the place of contrastive focus.
Instead, speakers were told that it was especially important to
correctly understand the intended relationship between the pair
of sentences on each card. Finally, they were encouraged to ask
for clarication or further instructions, and to repeat sentences
which they thought had not been produced properly.
Before recording the test materials, speakers read practice
sentence pairs which were not part of the experimental material
but contained words with the same number of syllables and
lexical stress patterning as the target ones.
The speakers reading was monitored by the rst author who
sat in the recording booth with them, and asked them to repeat
items if pauses, incorrect accent placement or mispronunciations
were detected. In a few cases, it was necessary to record some
additional repetitions at the end of a block.
The overall number of tokens which was recorded for each of
the three lexical stress patterns is 264: 11 words 2 con-
ditions 2 repetitions 6 speakers.
3.4. Measurements
The target words were segmented and labelled by hand in
Praat (Boersma & Weenink, 2009). Segmentation was done with
reference to waveforms and spectrograms, accompanied by audi-
tory evaluation of the recording. Cases of misplaced pitch accent
were evaluated aurally by both authors and discarded from
further analysis. The segmentation and labelling procedure is
illustrated in Fig. 1.
Segmental boundaries were placed on the basis of identifying
oral constrictions and the intervals between them, as described in
Turk, Nakai, and Sugahara (2006). Consonants were judged to
begin at the onset of constrictions, and to end at constriction
release. In cases where constriction release could not be identied
reliably (as when fricatives may have been followed by lower
amplitude aspiration noise, see /s/ in Fig. 1), the constriction was
judged to end, and the following vowel was judged to begin, at
the onset of voicing for the vowel. Normally, however, vowels
were judged to begin at the release of a preceding consonantal
constriction, and to end at the onset of constriction for a following
consonant, and thus included the VOT of a preceding aspirated
stop, when one occurred.
Segmental and syllable boundaries as well as syllable onsets,
peaks, codas and rhymes were all labelled on separate tiers.
Syllabication generally followed the Maximal Onset Principle. For
example, in words like democratic, syllabication was de.mo.cra.tic.
The segmentation and labelling was double-checked by the rst
author. Where boundary placement was problematic or unreliable,
data points were discarded, along with the corresponding data point
Fig. 1. Segmentation and labelling of the control sequence and the word serviceable in the sentence The old tools will be serviceable for us. Tier 1 is the Segmental Tier.
On Tier 2, OOnset, NNucleus, CCoda, and on Tier 3 OOnset, RRhyme. Tier 4 is the Syllable Tier, and Tier 5 is the Word Tier, on which the control sequence is also
labelled.
from the compared condition. Finally, syllable and sub-syllabic
component durations were extracted, again using Praat.
In addition to the target words, in each target sentence a
control sequence consisting of 2 to 4 sound segments was also
segmented and labelled.
3.5. Analyses
Durations of all control sequences, syllables and sub-syllabic
components (onsets and rhymes) in the experiments reported in
this paper were analysed using linear mixed effects models (see
Baayen, Davidson, & Bates, 2008 for an accessible introduction).
These analyses were implemented in R, an open-source language
and environment for statistical computing (R Development Core
Team, 2009). The lme4 package was employed for parameter
estimation and model evaluation (Baayen, 2008; Bates, 2005).
Linear mixed effects models are types of linear regression models
called mixed because they can include both xed and random
factors. Similar inferences about factor signicance can be drawn
from linear mixed effects analyses as can be drawn from ANOVA
or repeated measures ANOVA. One advantage of linear mixed
effects models over traditional (repeated measures) ANOVA is
that more than one random factor can be included.
In all analysis models, Speaker and Testword were used as
crossed random factors. In Experiments 1 and 2, where we were
primarily interested in the possible effect of accent on syllables
and syllable sub-components, Accent was the only xed factor. In
Section 5.4, where we were interested in differences between the
relative magnitude of the effect of accent on onsets vs. rhymes,
we included the xed factors, Accent and Onset_vs_Rhyme as
well as their interaction (AccentnOnset_vs_Rhyme).
Most of the analyses reported here use raw, non-log-trans-
formed duration as a dependent variable. Log transformations
are sometimes used in the durational literature in cases where
the distributions of durations are skewed (long-tailed), in order
to improve the normality of the duration distributions. However,
for the majority of cases reported here, log transforming the
data did not signicantly improve the normality of the duration
distributions. In cases where log transformations did improve
normality (1/3 of the cases), analyses of log durations showed
similar results for the factor of interest (Accent) as the analyses of
raw durations.
3
Before testing for the signicance of xed factors (e.g. Accent)
on a given dependent variable (e.g. syllable duration), we rst
assessed the possibility that the effects of xed factors of interest
were signicantly different for different speakers or test words.
To do this, we compared the ts of a simple regression model
including Speaker and Testword as crossed random factors, as
well as one or more xed factors, with the ts of more complex
models that included additional random factors. When the only
xed factor was Accent, these additional random effects were
(1) by-Speaker random slopes for Accent, and (2) by-Testword
random slopes for Accent. These slopes are analogous to interac-
tions of e.g. (1) Subject by Accent, and (2) Testword by Accent
in models where Speakers, Testwords and Accent are all xed
factors. When the xed factors were Accent, Onset_vs_Rhyme and
AccentnOnset_vs_Rhyme (Section 5.4), the additional random
effects were (1) by-Speaker random slopes for AccentnOnset_
vs_Rhyme, and (2) by-Testword random slopes for Accent-
nOnset_vs_Rhyme. These slopes are analogous to the three-way
interactions of e.g. (1) Speaker by Accent by Onset_vs_Rhyme, and
(2) Testword by Accent by Onset_vs_Rhyme in models where
Speakers, Testwords and Accent are all xed factors.
For each set of data, likelihood ratio tests were used to
compare the simple regression model (including the crossed
random effects as well as the xed factor(s) of interest), with
each of the more complex models. In these tests, twice the
difference between the log likelihood for the more complex
model and the log likelihood for the simple model follows a
chi-squared distribution (Baayen, 2008). When random slopes
contributed signicantly to the regression model, the complex
models including these slopes were used when assessing the
signicance of xed factors. Otherwise, the simple regression
model was used. In all cases, the signicance of the xed factors
was assessed using t-tests within the pvals function of language R.
In Section 5.4, where one of our goals is to determine whether
onsets vs. rhymes show different amounts of accent-related
lengthening, we report analyses using both raw and log
10
-trans-
formed durations. The analysis of raw durations allows us to
compare the effect of accent on onsets vs. rhymes in absolute
terms. The analysis of log-transformed durations allows us to
assess the effect of accent on onsets vs. rhymes in proportional
terms, because the logarithmic transform converts multiplicative
relationships into additive relationships (Napier, 1614; Wooldridge,
2009). We use both types of analyses because it is unclear which is
the most appropriate, particularly when comparing effect sizes
on different segment types (consonants in the case of onsets vs.
primarily vowels in the case of rhymes).
Most analyses reported in Section 5.4 involved within-test-
word comparisons and used the lmer procedure outlined above.
However, one of the analyses in Section 5.4.1 involved a between-
testword comparison of word-initial onsets vs. word-medial
onsets in the same accent context, where the word-initial onsets
and word-medial onsets came from different word sets. For this
analysis, we used a by-Subject repeated measures ANOVA, with
Duration as a dependent variable, and Position (rst vs. third
syllable), Accent (Accented vs. Unaccented), and Stress status
(Primary vs. Secondary) as independent variables. For this analy-
sis, we report only the effects of interest, that is, the interactions
between (1) Position (rst vs. third syllable) and Accent (Accented
vs. Unaccented), and (2) Position, Accent, and Stress_status
(Primary vs. Secondary).
Results of all analyses reported in the paper are presented
without any correction for multiple comparisons. While some
statisticians advocate such a correction (e.g. of the Bonferroni
type), others recommend not using one in cases like ours (Bland &
Altman, 1995), i.e. where comparisons are not independent of
each other. For example, of interest here, comparisons of syllable
rhymes are not independent from comparisons of whole syllables,
nor arguably are any of the comparisons made on the same
subjects data. Note that the lack of Bonferroni corrections for our
analyses make it more likely that we will nd signicant differ-
ences and therefore that we should nd support for the Contin-
uous Domain hypothesis.
3.6. Control sequence durations
First of all, control durations were analysed in order to ensure
that speakers had maintained a regular tempo across experimen-
tal conditions. Comparisons of control sequence durations in the
contrastive target sentences with those in the respective unac-
cented target sentences for the six speakers for all three groups of
words used in this study did not show any signicant differences.
We therefore assume that any signicant effects of Accent on the
durations of the target units (words, syllables and sub-syllabic
constituents) are not due to overall rate of speech differences.
3
In two cases (the onset of syllable 1 for 1000 pattern words, and the rhyme
of syllable 4 for 2010 pattern words), the log duration analyses showed no
evidence of a by-Speaker difference in the magnitude of the accent effect, whereas
the raw duration analyses had shown a by-Speaker difference in effect magnitude.
4. Experiment 1
4.1. Introduction
Experiment 1 was designed to distinguish the Continuous
Domain hypothesis from the Multiple Site hypothesis. The Con-
tinuous Domain hypothesis states that accentual lengthening
extends over a single multisyllabic domain beginning with the
primary-stressed syllable. On the other hand, the Multiple Site
hypothesis predicts that several distinct sites are potentially
affected by phrasal accent, such as the primary-stressed and the
nal syllable in a lexical word.
In order to investigate these two patterns of accentual length-
ening we used 4-syllable words with primary lexical stress on
their initial syllable. In these words, the primary-stressed syllable
occurred as far away as possible from the nal syllable, without
any intervening lexically stressed or full vowel syllables, e.g.
"
presidency. We refer to these as the 1000 pattern, or the
presidency-pattern words, where 1primary stressed syllable,
and 0unstressed syllable.
4.2. Method
4.2.1. Test materials
In order to study the accentual lengthening behaviour of
presidency-pattern words, we selected 11 four-syllable words
with lexical stress on their rst syllable, whose phonemic make-
up was judged relatively unlikely to posit any major segmenta-
tion problems. The 11 target words, along with the complete set
of test materials, are given in Appendix A. The contexts in which
the target words occurred in the experiment are illustrated below,
using the word presidency:
(3) (contrastive)
(Its been a stable opposition for him.)
Its been a stable presidency for him.
(4) (unaccented)
(Its been an awful presidency for him.)
4.2.2. Measurements
Some of the 264 tokens recorded for this experiment had to be
excluded from the statistical analyses,
4
because target words
were produced with unexpected numbers of syllables or promi-
nence patterns. In a few cases, further syllables or sub-syllabic
components had to be discarded because of segmentation dif-
culties. Table 1 summarises the number of analysed tokens
(syllables and sub-syllabic components). The lower number of
tokens for syllables 2 and 3 was due to segmentation difculties.
Therefore, we also included in the analysis the sum of the
durations of syllables 2 and 3, which was analysed for cases
where the boundary was uncertain. Onsets and rhymes, however,
were analysed separately, and only for those syllables for which a
boundary had been reliably determined.
4.3. Results
4.3.1. Syllable durations
The pooled data from all six speakers for the presidency-pattern
words (Fig. 2) supports the Multiple Site hypothesis. Phrasal accent
signicantly affected the durations of Syllable 1 (the initial, primary
stressed syllable) and 4 (the nal syllable) only. Syllables 2 and 3, on
the other hand, were unaffected by Accent, either when analysed
separately or together. Syllable 1 was 21 ms (10.2%) longer when the
word was contrastively accented as compared to unaccented,
t(195)4.974, po0.001, and Syllable 4 was 8 ms (4.6%) longer,
t(203)2.908, p0.004.
Our data also showed that the effect of Accent on Syllable
1 differed by Testword. We found a signicant contribution of by-
Testword random slopes for Accent condition (contrastive vs.
unaccented) for Syllable 1 (w
2
(2)6.1846, N196, p0.045). For
example, in testword 1 candidacies, Syllable 1 was unexpectedly
slightly longer (by about 2 ms) when the word was unaccented as
compared to accented; Syllable 1 in testword 10 desolately, on the
other hand, was affected more strongly by Accent (49 ms effect
size) than was average (21 ms) for this word set.
5
No signicant
by-Testword or by-Speaker contribution was found for any of the
other syllables.
The lengthening pattern for presidency-type words runs counter
to the Continuous Domain hypothesis according to which accent
affects a multisyllabic domain which starts with the main-stress
syllable and extends to the word-edge. Our ndings of two separate
lengthening sites support the viewthat duration is used in two ways
to signal contrastive focus (i) by highlighting the prominent (pri-
mary-stressed) initial syllable, and (ii) by demarcating the right edge
of the word. If indeed two lengthening mechanisms are at work
(prominence-related lengthening and nal lengthening), we might
also expect different distributions of lengthening on the prominent
vs. nal syllables. This is because studies in the literature (Berkovits,
1993a, 1993b, 1994; Cambier-Langeveld, 1997; van Santen, 1994;
Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2007; Wightman et al., 1992) have found
that nal lengthening affects syllable rhymes more than onsets,
while accent spreads durational effects more uniformly across the
syllable.
In order to check this prediction, we next analysed sub-syllabic
constituent durations, namely, syllable onsets and syllable rhymes
in 1000 (e.g., presidency) pattern words.
4.3.2. OnsetRhyme durations
The distribution of lengthening over the onsets and rhymes of
the four syllables of the 1000 (e.g., presidency) pattern words is
shown in Fig. 3.
Table 1
Number of analysed syllables and sub-syllabic components (onsets and rhymes)
1000 pattern words (e.g., presidency).
N
Syllables Onsets Rhymes
Syllable 1 196 200 192
Syllable 2 146 100 90
Syllable 3 154 124 126
Syllable 4 204 174 180
Syllables 23 196
4
The rst reason for this was that, in the recordings of several speakers, it was
hard to nd acoustic evidence for all 4 syllables of the target word seasonable. In
addition, when asked several weeks after the recording how many syllables they
thought they had in this word, speakers replied almost unanimously that for them,
this was a three-syllable word. This is why the word seasonable, as produced by all
6 speakers, was excluded from the analysis. For two of the speakers, noticeable had
to be excluded on the same grounds, and for one of those two speakers,
purchasable and desolately were also excluded. A few further items were excluded
because of wrong pitch accent placement.
5
An (impressionistic) explanation for this is that at least some of the speakers
tended to dramatise their reading of this particular word, adding extra emphasis.
None of the other words were produced in this way.
Results for Onsets and Rhymes support the view that two
different types of lengthening mechanisms are at work when
target words are contrastively accented. Both the onset and the
rhyme of the initial primary stressed syllable were affected
signicantly, as expected from prominence-related lengthening
(Onset: 15 ms (22.6%) longer when accented as compared to
unaccented, t(199)3.455, po0.001; Rhyme: 6 ms (4.4%)
longer, t(191)2.513, p0.017). A signicant amount of length-
ening was also observed on the rhyme, but not on the onset,
of the nal syllable, as expected from nal lengthening (6 ms
(5.3%), t(179)2.249, p0.026). These results are consistent
with the view that speakers use duration in two ways to highlight
accented words: (1) to make the primary stressed syllable
more prominent, and (2) to demarcate the word. There was a
tendency towards signicant lengthening of the rhyme of the
syllable immediately following the pitch accent (6 ms (10.4%),
t(89)1.862, p0.066, ns); this may be evidence for a spill-
over effect from the main stress, as reported in earlier studies
(Turk & White, 1999).
Although the general pattern involving lengthening of the onset
of the main stress syllable (onset of Syllable 1) is characteristic of all
six speakers, our analyses showed a signicant contribution of
by-Speaker random slopes for Accent (w
2
(2)6.5004, N200,
p0.039). An examination of the data suggests that the effect is
much smaller for Speaker 5 than for the others (observed lengthen-
ing was less than 5 ms), which may be due to the overall faster
tempo characteristic of this particular speaker.
There was also a signicant contribution of by-Testword
random slopes for Accent (w
2
(2)8.5068, N200, p0.014) in
predicting the durational behaviour of the Onset of Syllable 1;
several of the target words showed considerably smaller amount
of onset lengthening on their lexically stressed syllable under
contrastive accent than the average mean of 15 ms, namely, No.
1candidacies, No. 8protable, and No. 9purchasable. How-
ever, the general pattern of increasing the duration of the onset of
the lexically stressed syllable when the word is contrastively
accented, was typical of all testwords.
4.4. Discussion
Results from Experiment 1 are consistent with the view that
accentual lengthening does not affect all parts of a phrasally
accented word. For English four-syllable words with primary
lexical stress on the initial syllable (contrastive), accent affects
two separate, distinct sitesthe primary-stressed syllable and the
nal syllable. There was also a tendency for the syllable rhyme
immediately following the primary stress to be longer in the
accented condition than in the unaccented condition. This pattern
is suggestive of a residual, spill-over effect.
5. Experiment 2
5.1. Introduction
The rst goal of Experiment 2 was to determine whether
secondary stress also provides a potential lengthening site. There-
fore, in this experiment we investigated accentual lengthening in
words which, in addition to a primary lexical stress, also have
some degree of weaker (secondary) stress. If secondary stressed
syllables serve as lengthening sites, we expect that words such as
suffocating should behave differently from presidency-type words,
that is, there will be accentual lengthening on the third syllable
(e.g., -ca-) in addition to the lengthening sites observed in
Experiment 1. If secondary stressed syllables serve as lengthening
sites, words such as democratic are expected to show lengthening
on the secondary stressed syllable (Syllable 1) in addition to the
third (primary stressed), and fourth (nal) syllables.
These words might also be expected to provide a further test of
the Multiple Site vs. Continuous Domain hypotheses. However, a
positive nding of lengthening on secondary stressed syllables in
suffocating-pattern words would make it difcult to distinguish
between the two views, because suffocating-type words might be
expected to show lengthening on all syllables under both hypoth-
eses. The Continuous Domain hypothesis would predict lengthen-
ing on all syllables starting with the primary stressed syllable to
the end of the word. The Multiple Site view would make the same
prediction: lengthening on Syllable 1 (primary stressed syllable),
Syllable 3 (secondary stressed syllable), and Syllable 4 (nal
syllable) with possible spill-over lengthening on Syllable 2. A
similar problem exists for democratic-type words, regardless of
the lengthening status of secondary stressed syllables. In these
words, if the accentual lengthening domain begins with the
primary stressed syllable and extends to the end of the word,
lengthening would be expected to affect Syllables 3 and 4, just as
it would if Syllables 3 and 4 were separate lengthening sites
under the Multiple Site view. If accent-related lengthening affects
90
110
130
150
170
190
210
230
syl 1* syl 2 syl 3 syl 4*
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)

contrastive
unaccented
*
*
Fig. 2. Mean syllable durations (and standard error bars)pooled data from all
6 speakers for the 1000 pattern target words (e.g., presidency). Asterisks indicate a
signicant effect of Accent.
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
onset*
syl 1*
onset
syl 2
onset
syl 3
onset
syl 4*
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)

contrastive
unaccented
*
*
(*)
*
rhyme(*) rhyme rhyme* rhyme*
Fig. 3. Mean onset and rhyme durations (and standard error bars) of the four
syllables of presidency-pattern testwords. Asterisks indicate a signicant main
effect of Accent, and brackets indicate a tendency towards signicance.
secondary stressed syllables in these words, the Continuous
Domain view would predict a domain that includes the whole
word. However, the Multiple Site view might make the same
prediction, since lengthening sites would include Syllable 1
(secondary stressed syllable, e.g. de-), Syllable 3 (primary stressed
syllable, e.g. -cra-), Syllable 4 (nal syllable, e.g. -tic), and possibly
Syllable 2 (e.g. mo-) if lengthening can spill over from Syllable 1
(e.g. de-).
As in Experiment 1, syllable sub-component durations (for
Onsets and Rhymes) will provide a test of the Edge Marking
hypothesis.
5.2. Method
5.2.1. Test materials
We selected one set of eleven four-syllable English words with
primary stress on their initial syllable, followed by one
unstressed, one secondary-stressed, and a nal unstressed sylla-
ble, e.g.,
"
suffo"cating,
"
photo"copy. A second set of target words
included four-syllable words with secondary stress on their rst
syllable and primary stress on the penultimate syllable, e.g.,
"demo
"
cratic, "con
"
dential. We will refer to the rst set as the
1020 pattern, or the suffocating pattern words, and to the
second set as the 2010 pattern, or the democratic pattern
words (the numbers refer to degrees of lexical stress as follows:
1primary-stressed syllable, 2secondary-stressed syllable and
0unstressed syllable).
The two sets of 11 target words each, along with the complete
set of test materials, are given in Appendix B. As in Experiment 1,
speakers produced two repetitions of each data set, with different
randomisations for each repetition for each participant. Partici-
pants were given the same instructions as in Experiment 1.
Examples (5)(6) using the target word suffocating illustrate the
two experimental conditions, with the background sentences
given in brackets:
(5) (contrastive)
(Temperatures are nearly freezing there.)
Temperatures are nearly suffocating there.
(6) (unaccented)
(Gases are nearly suffocating there.)
5.2.2. Measurements
Two hundred and sixty-four tokens of the 1020 (e.g., suffocat-
ing) pattern words and 264 tokens of the 2010 (e.g., democratic)
pattern words were recorded in this experiment. For one of the
speakers, we had to exclude from the analyses two of the 1020
target words, namely, persecuted and substituted, because percep-
tually as well as in terms of the acoustic signal, these were judged
by both authors to have 3 instead of 4 syllables. In addition, a
number of items were excluded because of wrong pitch accent
placement. Finally, for a few syllables, onsets and rhymes had to
be excluded because of segmentation problems. The overall
number of analysed syllables and sub-syllabic components is
given in Table 2.
5.3. Results
5.3.1. Secondary stressed syllables
Our data suggest that secondary stressed syllables can serve as
lengthening sites, but only in suffocating-pattern words. The
secondary stressed syllable in suffocating-pattern words (Syllable 3)
showed a signicant main effect of Accent (9 ms (5.2%) longer,
t(193)3.889, po0.001). However, for democratic-pattern words,
only a tendency towards signicance was found for the effect of
Accent on the syllable carrying secondary stress (Syllable 1) e.g. de-
(5 ms (4%) longer, t(243)1.937, p0.054). In Section 5.4.1, we
show that only the onset of this syllable is lengthened by Accent. As
we discuss there, lengthening of the onset is consistent with Edge
Marking, where word-initial lengthening is expected to preferentially
affect the rst consonant in the word. If the secondary stressed
syllable had been a lengthening site, we would have expected to see
signicant accent-related lengthening on both the onset and rhyme.
We therefore conclude that secondary stressed syllables can be
affected by Accent, but only in some word types.
Given the positive evidence for accent-related lengthening on
the secondary stressed syllable (Syllable 3, e.g. ca- in suffocating),
we do not expect our syllable results for this word-pattern to
distinguish the Continuous Domain vs. Multiple Site views.
Indeed, all four syllables in suffocating-pattern words were
lengthened (Fig. 4), although the effect for Syllable 4 only tended
towards signicance. There was a signicant main effect of Accent
for the primary stressed syllableSyllable 1 (20 ms (12.1%),
t(223)3.296, p0.001), for Syllable 2 (unstressed) (8 ms
(6.5%), t(215)4.28, po0.001), and for Syllable 3 (mentioned
above). The effect of Accent on Syllable 4 (the nal unstressed
syllable) was small in size and only tended towards signicance
(5 ms (3%), t(213)1.787, p0.075).
For the primary stressed Syllable 1, we also found a signicant
by-Speaker random slopes contribution (w
2
(2)13.828, N224,
po0.001), which reects the fact that some speakers (e.g., Speaker
2, Speaker 5) used a considerably smaller amount of lengthening
Table 2
Number of analysed syllables and sub-syllabic components (onsets and
rhymes)1020 (e.g., suffocating) and 2010 (e.g., democratic) pattern words.
N
Syllables Onsets Rhymes
1020 pattern words
Syllable 1 224 226 216
Syllable 2 216 176 166
Syllable 3 194 188 186
Syllable 4 214 166 166
2010 pattern words
Syllable 1 244 234 244
Syllable 2 238 156 170
Syllable 3 236 218 214
Syllable 4 250 216 246
90
110
130
150
170
190
210
230
syl 1* syl 2* syl 3* syl 4(*)
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
*
*
*
(*)
Fig. 4. Mean syllable durations (and standard error bars)1020 pattern words
(e.g., suffocating).
than others (e.g., Speaker 4). In spite of the inter-speaker variation,
however, all speakers preserved the overall pattern of a longer
initial primary-stressed syllable when the target word was (con-
trastively) accented than when it was unaccented.
Results for syllable durations of target words from the 2010
pattern (e.g., democratic, see Fig. 5) support the view that accent-
related lengthening sites include the primary stressed syllable,
the nal syllable (and perhaps the secondary stressed syllable, as
discussed above). Signicant lengthening was found on the
penultimate, primary-stressed syllable, Syllable 3 (20 ms
(10.7%), t(235)3.343, p0.001) as well as on the nal syllable,
Syllable 4 (14 ms (8.9%), t(249)2.498, p0.013). We also
observed a tendency towards signicant lengthening on Syllable
1. No signicant main effect of Accent was found for Syllable 2.
For the nal two syllables of the 2010 (democratic-pattern)
target words there was also a signicant by-Speaker random
slopes contribution for the primary stressed Syllable 3 (w
2
(2)
15.347, N236, po0.001) and for Syllable 4 (w
2
(2)12.906,
N250, po0.01). Although some speakers (e.g., Speaker 4)
lengthened syllable 3 considerably more than others (e.g., Speaker
2, for whom the amount of lengthening was non-signicant), all
speakers followed the general pattern of having a longer primary-
stressed syllable when the target word was contrastively
accented. However, for Syllable 4, the pattern of lengthening
differed depending on the speaker. Five of the speakers length-
ened the nal syllable (Syllable 4), but one speaker (Speaker 5)
did not; this speaker shortened the nal syllable by 3.5 ms when
accented as compared to unaccented. This shortening occurred on
the rhyme of Syllable 4, as discussed in Section 5.3.2.2. This
pattern of results raises the possibility of optional accent-related
lengthening on some sites. That is, whereas accentual lengthening
on the primary-stressed syllable occurs for all speakers, speakers
appear to have a choice as to whether to lengthen other
lengthening sites. It may be worth noting again that this speaker
had the fastest overall speech rate.
Inter-speaker variability not withstanding, all of the speakers
preserve the distinctive word-accentual pattern of democratic-
type words under contrastive accent, alternating longer (strong)
and shorter (weak) syllables under both experimental conditions.
A surprising result for 1020 (suffocating-pattern) words is that
the effect on the nal syllable is smaller in magnitude compared
to the effect on nal syllables for the other two word types under
investigation, and only tended towards signicance. We hypothesise
that this smaller amount of lengthening may have something to do
with the preservation of the durational reex of the lexical stress
pattern, that is, longer lexically stressed syllables, followed by
shorter unstressed syllables. A great deal of lengthening on the nal
syllable in suffocating-pattern words could make this unstressed
syllable approximately as long as the adjacent secondary stress. It is
possible that speakers constrain lengthening on the nal syllable to
preserve the durational correlates of the alternating stress pattern in
these words.
5.3.2. OnsetRhyme durations
OnsetRhyme durations were investigated as a test of the Edge
Marking hypothesis (Figs. 6 and 7). On this view, we expected to
see more lengthening on onsets than rhymes on initial syllables,
and more lengthening on rhymes than onsets for nal syllables.
Although the effect of Accent is not signicant for the nal
syllable onset and rhyme in suffocating-type words, the expected
pattern of results was observed for all word-edge syllables. Edge
marking is seen most clearly in the rst syllable of democratic-
pattern words, where Accent-related lengthening was observed
on the onset, but not the rhyme, of the word-initial syllable,
consistent with initial-lengthening.
Results for word-medial syllable sub-components showed
that the effect on the secondary stressed syllable observed in
90
110
130
150
170
190
210
230
syl 1(*) syl 2 syl 3* syl 4*
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
contrastive
unaccented
(*)
*
*
Fig. 5. Mean syllable durations (and standard error bars)2010 pattern words
(e.g., democratic).
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
onset*
syl 1*
rhyme* onset
syl 2*
rhyme* onset
syl 3*
rhyme* onset
syl 4(*)
rhyme
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
*
*
*
*
Fig. 6. Mean onset and rhyme durations (and standard error bars) of 1020 (e.g.,
suffocating) pattern words.
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
onset*
syl 1(*)
rhyme(*) onset
syl 2
rhyme onset*
syl 3*
rhyme* onset*
syl 4*
rhyme*
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
contrastive
unaccented
*
(*)
*
*
*
*
Fig. 7. Mean onset and rhyme durations (and standard error bars) of 2010 (e.g.,
democratic) pattern words.
suffocating-pattern words, as well as the effect of spill-over
lengthening on Syllable 2 were conned to the rhyme. That the
pattern for spillover lengthening was similar to the pattern in
Experiment 1 (affecting the rhyme rather than the onset) raises
the possibility that spillover lengthening may preferentially affect
the syllable rhyme. Details are given below.
5.3.2.1. Word pattern 1020. The onset and the rhyme of the primary
stressed Syllable 1 were affected signicantly by Accent as follows:
the onset was 15 ms (20.6%) longer when contrastively accented
(t(225)4.533, po0.001), and the rhyme was 6 ms (6.4 %) longer
(t(215)2.727, p0.007). Main effects of Accent were also found
on the rhymes (but not on the onsets) of Syllable 2 (about 5 ms
(7.5%), t(165)2.242, p0.026) and Syllable 3the secondary-
stressed syllable (7 ms (6.8%), t(185)3.256, po0.01).
For the onset of Syllable 1 there was also a signicant by-Speaker
random slopes contribution (w
2
(2)6.7915, N226, p0.034).
Although all six speakers signicantly lengthened the onset of the
primary stressed syllable, the amount of lengthening was larger for
some speakers (e.g., 28 ms for Speaker 4) than for others (e.g., only
7 ms for Speaker 5, which may be related to the faster tempo of
speech characteristic of this particular speaker). We also found a
tendency towards signicant by-Testword random slopes contribu-
tion for the rhyme of Syllable 1 (w
2
(2)4.7266, p0.094). Two of
the testwords showed rhyme durations that were virtually undis-
tinguishable when accented as compared to unaccented (Testword
1criticism: 2 ms shorter when accented; and Testword 8dedi-
cated: 1 ms shorter when accented).
5.3.2.2. Word pattern 2010. For Syllable 1, which carried
secondary stress in the democratic-pattern words, there was a
signicant main effect of Accent for the onset (9 ms (15.3%) longer
(t(233)4.819, po0.001), as well as a tendency towards
signicance of the main effect of Accent on the rhyme
(t(243)1.945, p0.053). The rhyme, however, was on average
4 ms (3.2%) shorter when the target word was accented, which
suggests lack of accentual lengthening on the secondary-stressed
syllables of this word type. Neither the onset nor the rhyme of
Syllable 2 were affected signicantly by Accent. For Syllable 3 (the
primary-stressed syllable), on the other hand, there was a
signicant effect of Accent for both the onset (8 ms (15.4%)
longer, t(217)3.205, p0.002) and the rhyme (10 ms (7.2%)
longer, t(213)3.188, p0.002). Similarly, for Syllable 4 both
the onset and the rhyme were affected signicantly: the onset
was 4 ms (4.7%) longer when the word was contrastively accented
(t(215)2.472, p0.014), while the rhyme was 11 ms (12.9%)
longer (t(245)2.176, p0.03).
A signicant by-Speaker random slopes contribution was
observed for the rhyme of Syllable 4 (w
2
(2)10.174, N246,
p0.006), showing that some speakers (e.g. Speaker 12 ms)
lengthened it considerably less than other speakers (e.g., Speaker
431 ms), while for one of the speakers (Speaker 5) the nal rhyme
tended to be slightly shorter (by about 4 ms) rather than longer
when the words were contrastively accented. Also, a tendency
towards signicance of by-Speaker random slopes contribution was
found for the rhyme of Syllable 3 (w
2
(2)4.8763, N214, p0.087).
5.4. Further analyses of the edge marking hypothesis
In the analyses presented above, the best evidence for initial
lengthening came from democratic-type words; for these words,
only the onset of the initial syllable was affected by Accent, a
pattern which is consistent with initial lengthening. For the other
words, our analyses did not allow us to disentangle prominence-
related from edge-related (initial) lengthening since word-initial
syllables bore primary lexical stress. In addition, our analyses did
not allow us to assess relative magnitudes of lengthening on
onsets vs. rhymes (both were signicantly affected by Accent in
presidency- and suffocating-type words). As for edge marking on
nal syllables, only presidency-pattern words showed unambig-
uous evidence for nal lengthening when these words were
accented. In these words, only the rhyme was affected by Accent,
a pattern which supports the nal lengthening view. However, for
the other word types, our analyses did not provide evidence for
the relative magnitude of lengthening on nal rhymes as com-
pared with onsets. We therefore performed further analyses of
sub-syllabic component durations of syllables 1 and 4, for all
three of our datasets pooled (1000, 1020, and 2010). These
analyses were designed (1) to disentangle prominence-related
from initial-lengthening effects, and (2) to compare magnitudes
of lengthening on onsets vs. rhymes. The effects of Accent on
onsets vs. rhymes were compared (1) for Syllable 1, where the
edge marking view predicts more relative lengthening on onsets,
and (2) for Syllable 4, where the edge marking view predicts more
relative lengthening on rhymes.
In this section, we report analyses using both raw and log-
transformed durations. The analysis of raw durations allows us to
compare the effect of Accent on onsets vs. rhymes in absolute
terms. The analysis of log-transformed durations allows us to
assess the effect of Accent on onsets vs. rhymes in proportional
terms, because the logarithmic transform converts multiplicative
relationships into additive relationships (Wooldridge, 2009). We
use both types of analyses because it is unclear which is the most
appropriate, particularly when comparing effect sizes on different
segment types (consonants in the case of onsets, and primarily
vowels in the case of rhymes).
5.4.1. Syllable 1
As shown in Fig. 8, the Edge Marking, initial lengthening
hypothesis prediction that Syllable 1 should show a greater effect
of Accent for onsets than for rhymes (signicant interaction of
AccentnOnset_vs_Rhyme) was upheld: the effect of interest here,
namely, that of the xed factor AccentnOnset_vs_Rhyme, was
found to be signicant for both absolute and log duration
(proportional durational differences). The effect of Accent on
onsets was 13 ms (21%), and for rhymes 3 ms (3%) (for durations,
t(1249)5.326, po0.001, and for log durations, t(1249)5.57,
po0.001).
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Rhymes Onsets
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
contrastive
unaccented
Fig. 8. Mean contrastive vs. unaccented onset and rhyme durations (and standard
error bars) for syllable 1 for all three word types pooled.
A signicant contribution of by-Testword random slopes to the
model was also found for both duration (w
2
(9)1814.2, N1252,
po0.001) and log duration (w
2
(9)1480.6, N1252, po0.001).
Twenty-six out of the 32 testwords had bigger absolute effects of
Accent for Onsets compared to Rhymes, one had equal absolute
effect size, and 5 had larger absolute effects on rhymes, compared
to onsets. In proportional terms, 30 of 32 testwords had larger
proportional effects on onsets compared to rhymes, and 2 had
larger effects on rhymes than onsets.
Because all word-initial syllables in our test items bore some
type of prominenceprimary stress in the case of 1000 (pre-
sidency-pattern) and 1020 (suffocating-pattern) words, and sec-
ondary stress in the case of 2010 (democratic-pattern) words, we
cannot immediately conclude that the observed interaction
between Accent and Onset_vs_Rhyme is due to an edge effect
per se, since it could be due to the prominence of the word-initial
syllable. On this view, all prominent syllables would have larger
effects of accent on their onsets than on their rhymes, regardless
of their position-in-word. The Edge Marking hypothesis on the
other hand, predicts a greater effect of Accent on word-edge
(initial) syllable onsets than on word-medial syllable onsets. That
is, the rst syllable in 1000 (e.g., presidency) and 1020 (e.g.,
suffocating) words (bearing primary lexical stress) is expected to
have a greater effect of Accent on its onset than the third syllable
in 2010 (e.g., democratic) words, and similarly, the rst syllable in
2010 words (bearing secondary lexical stress) is expected to have
a greater effect of Accent on its onset than the third syllable in
1020 words.
Although we make the caveat that our comparisons of word-
initial vs. word-medial syllable onsets involve different segments,
our results, shown in Fig. 9 largely conrm the Edge Marking
hypothesis. Word-initial onsets showed an effect of Accent of
13 ms (21%) as compared to 4 ms (7%) on the onsets of syllable 3.
Results of a by-Subjects ANOVA with absolute duration as a
dependent variable showed a signicant interaction between
Position (rst vs. third syllable) and Accent (Accented vs. Unac-
cented): (F(1,5)19.29, p0.007), with a non-signicant three-
way interaction of Position, Accent, and Stress_status (F(1,5)41,
ns). For log durations, the results were similar: We found a
signicant two-way interaction between Position and Accent,
(F(1,5)18.5, p0.008), again with a non-signicant 3-way Posi-
tion X Accent X Stress_status interaction (F(1,5)1.071, ns).
5.4.2. Syllable 4
According to the Edge Marking Hypothesis, Syllable 4 should
show a greater effect of Accent for Rhymes than for Onsets, that is,
a signicant interaction of AccentnOnset_vs_Rhyme.
Results are shown in Fig. 10. Although the effects of Accent
were slightly greater on rhymes than on onsets (rhymes 7 ms
longer, 7% vs. onsets 3 ms longer, 5%), the interaction between
Accent and Onset_vs_Rhyme was insignicant both in the Abso-
lute duration analysis (t(1145)0.808, ns), and in the log
duration analysis (t(1145)0.02, ns).
For absolute durations, there was a signicant contribution to the
linear mixed effects regression model of by-Testword random slopes
(w
2
(9)1077.8, N1148, po0.001) and by-Speaker random slopes
(w
2
(9)18.843, N1148, p0.027). All speakers except Speaker
5 had larger durational effects of Accent on Rhymes as compared to
Onsets, whereas the reverse was found for Speaker 5. For all
speakers pooled, 21 out of 31 test words showed larger effects of
Accent on Rhymes as compared to Onsets, whereas 10 showed the
reverse pattern. For log durations, a signicant contribution of by-
Testword random slopes to the model was found (w
2
(9)1066.0,
N1148, po0.001). For these, 17 out of 31 testwords showed larger
proportional effects of Accent on rhymes compared to onsets; 14
showed the reverse pattern.
6. Summary and discussion
Our study builds on previous work suggesting that contrastive
accent can affect more than a single syllable in polysyllabic words.
Our study contrasted two views: (1) the Continuous Domain
hypothesis, whereby contrastive accent lengthens a single, contin-
uous domain vs. (2) the Multiple Site hypothesis, where contrastive
accent lengthens several, distinct sites within the contrastively
accented word. Previous work had failed to distinguish these two
views, primarily because the studied word sizes were too small to
reliably separate potential lengthening sites.
Results presented here for longer, 4 syllable words supported
the Multiple Site hypothesis: contrastive accent did not lengthen
a single continuous domain. Instead, lengthening sites included
(1) the primary stressed syllable, (2) a spill-over site that
consisted of the rhyme immediately following the primary
stressed syllable, (3) the nal syllable, and (4) the onset of the
word-initial syllable (a single consonant in the data presented
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80

Onsets - syl 1 Onsets - syl 3
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
contrastive
unaccented
Fig. 9. Mean contrastive vs. unaccented durations (and standard error bars) for
Onset 1 (the onset of syllable 1) and Onset 3 (the onset of syllable 3). Onset 1 data
came from all three word types; Onset 3 data came from 2010 and 1020 word
types only.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Rhymes Onsets
D
u
r
a
t
i
o
n

(
m
s
)
contrastive
unaccented
Fig. 10. Mean contrastive vs. unaccented onset and rhyme durations (and
standard error bars) for syllable 4 for all three word types pooled.
here). The secondary stressed syllable was also a lengthening site
in suffocating-pattern words, where it was word-medial, but did
not appear to be a lengthening site in democratic-type words,
where the secondary stress was word-initial.
Evidence for the Multiple Site hypothesis was clearest for
presidency-pattern and democratic-pattern words. In presidency-
pattern words, contrastive accent affected the primary stressed
syllable and the nal syllable, with spill-over lengthening on
the rhyme of the second syllable that tended towards signicance.
The third (unstressed) syllable was unaffected. In democratic-
pattern words, contrastive accent affected the word-onset con-
sonant, as well as the primary stressed and nal syllables. The
second (unstressed) syllable was unaffected.
Suffocating-pattern words showed lengthening on all 4 sylla-
bles, although lengthening on the last syllable only tended
towards signicance. We interpret the difference in lengthening
patterns between suffocating-type words vs. presidency-type
words (i.e. lengthening on all 4 syllables vs. lengthening on only
3) as due to the secondary stress on the third syllable in
suffocating-pattern words. On this view, suffocating-type words
contain all 4 possible lengthening sites, that is, the primary
stressed syllable (Syllable 1), a spill-over site on the rhyme of
the syllable adjacent to the primary stressed syllable (Syllable 2),
the secondary stressed syllable (Syllable 3), and the nal syllable
(Syllable 4).
In summary, our evidence supports the multiple site view.
Note that this outcome was observed in spite of our anti-
conservative statistical analysis (we did not perform Bonferroni
corrections for multiple tests), which would have made a Con-
tinuous Domain outcome more likely.
6.1. Multiple sites and multiple mechanisms: prominence, edge
marking, and spill-over
Why should contrastive phrasal accent affect a number of
distinct lengthening sites? Our results support the view that
distinct sites reect the operation of multiple mechanisms:
Prominence-related lengthening, edge-related lengthening, and
spill-over lengthening. Speakers use the temporal effects of
contrastive accent to make the stressed word more salient in two
ways: (1) by making the primary stressed syllable (as well as the
secondary stressed syllable in some word types) more prominent,
and (2) by Edge-Marking, via initial- and nal-lengthening on
contrastively accented words. In our experiment, we had three
types of evidence for Edge Marking. First, in presidency-type
words, the only unstressed syllable that was lengthened under
accent was the nal syllable, suggestive of nal lengthening, and
here the lengthening was localised to the rhyme, the pattern
expected for nal lengthening. Second, a comparison of lengthen-
ing magnitudes on syllable onsets suggests that lengthening due
to accent was greater at word edges than word medially, when
the stress status of these syllables was taken into account. That is,
the effect of contrastive accent was greater on the onset of word-
initial primary stressed Syllable 1 in suffocating- and presidency-
type words as compared to the onset of word-medial primary
stressed Syllable 3 in democratic-type words. Also, the effect of
contrastive phrasal accent was greater on the onset of word-
initial secondary stressed Syllable 1 in democratic-type words as
compared to the onset of word-medial secondary stressed Sylla-
ble 3 in suffocating-type words. Besides, lengthening on the onsets
of word-initial syllables was greater in magnitude than lengthen-
ing on the rhyme. We had expected to see a fourth type of
evidence, that is, greater lengthening on the rhyme of the nal
syllable as compared with the onset, as is the expected pattern for
nal lengthening, but this comparison failed to reach signicance in
our data. In interpreting these results, we caution that word-edge vs.
word-medial comparisons were between-word comparisons, where
compared segments were not always the same. Similarly, onset vs.
rhyme comparisons were also (necessarily) made on different
segment types (consonants vs. vowels). These results therefore ask
for conrmation in future studies.
In the present study, we claim that lengthening has spilled
over from the primary stressed syllable to a following unstressed
syllable. What explanation do we have for spill-over lengthening?
As mentioned in the introduction, spill-over lengthening has been
observed in previous studies (Chen, 2006; Turk & White, 1999).
Evidence for spill-over lengthening comes from studies of the
effects of a preceding boundary on the magnitude of accentual
lengthening on a following unstressed syllable. These studies nd
that boundaries typically attenuate, but do not always block,
lengthening due to accent on an unstressed syllable following the
main-stress. The interpretation of these residual effects is that
lengthening has spilled over from the preceding syllable. As of
yet, we do not have an explanation for these effects, but note that
analogous effects in the spatial domain have been observed in the
non-speech motor control literature (Jax & Rosenbaum, 2009; Van
der Wel, Fleckenstein, Jax, and Rosenbaum, 2007). Van der Wel,
Fleckenstein, Jax, and Rosenbaum (2007) presented experiments
in which participants moved a vertical dowel on a planar surface
from target to target in time to a metronome. Some of the
movements involved clearing an obstacle between targets. They
showed that the spatial paths of hand movements following the
obstacle-clearing movements were higher than those seen in
control, non-obstacle trials, even when the successive movements
were made with the opposite hand. They interpreted their results
as consistent with the view that movements are represented
abstractly, and that planning movements involves setting para-
meters (e.g. for hand, spatial characteristics, etc.). They propose
that parameters are set by changing parameter settings used in
previous movements, and that there is a cost related to the size of
parameter changes. We wonder whether the spill-over length-
ening phenomenon that we observe reects the cost associated
with changing the durational parameter for syllables following
the primary stress.
6.2. Variability
In terms of the order of the Accent effect (Accented longer than
Unaccented), the results reported here were remarkably consis-
tent across Speakers and Testwords. Although we did observe
quite a few cases where the effect of Accent interacted with either
Speaker or Testword, an examination of effects of Accent for
specic speakers and testwords in these cases, showed that the
number of effect reversals was rare. When they did occur, the
reversals were very small in magnitude (o4 ms) and arguably
negligible.
Nevertheless, we did observe variability in the magnitude of
the effect of Accent, particularly across Speakers. This result
suggests that different speakers may choose to use duration to
varying degrees to signal contrastive accent. For example, it was
often the case that Speaker 5 showed smaller effects than other
speakers, and that Speaker 4 typically showed larger effects.
Speaker 5 showed an effect reversal for the rhyme of Syllable
4 in 2010 (e.g., democratic) pattern words (unaccented 4 ms
longer than accented). We speculate that Speaker 5s faster rate
of speech may have had something to do with his limited use of
duration in signalling phrasal accent: On this view, this speaker
saved time by limiting the size of the lengthening effect. However,
we note that rate of speech cant be the only factor in determining
the degree of lengthening: Speaker 4, who had larger lengthening
effects of Accent than the other speakers, was not noticeably
slower in terms of overall speech rate.
In contrast to the by-Speaker variability that appeared to be
fairly widespread, systematic by-Testword variability was lim-
ited. Only one of our lengthening sites showed reliable differences
in the effect of Accent across testwords; this was Syllable 1 of the
1000 (e.g., presidency) pattern words, where the testword candi-
dacies showed a 2 ms lengthening reversal (unaccented longer
than accented). The rhyme of Syllable 3 in 1020 (e.g., suffocating)
pattern words also showed some by-Testword differences in the
effect of Accent, but these only tended towards signicance.
In terms of variability in the effect of Accent across lengthening
sites, we note that lengthening was most reliable on two of the sites:
(1) on the primary stressed syllable and (2) on the onset of the word-
initial syllable. Main effects of accent on these sites were statistically
reliable for all word types. Lengthening on the nal syllable rhyme,
the rhyme of the secondary stressed syllable, and on the rhyme of
the syllable following the primary lexical stress syllable (the spill-
over site) depended to some extent on word-type.
6
That is, Accent-
related lengthening on the nal syllable rhyme was signicant for
presidency- and democratic-type words, but only tended towards
signicance for suffocating-type words. The secondary stressed
syllable rhyme appeared to be a lengthening target only in suffocat-
ing-type words. Lengthening on the rst (secondary stress) syllable of
democratic-type words was conned to the onset, and is therefore
suggestive of lengthening on a word-initial onset lengthening site,
rather than on a secondary-stress syllable lengthening site per se.
Lengthening on the spill-over site, the rhyme of the syllable
following the primary lexical stress (e.g. on i- of presidency), or on
e.g. o- of suffocating, was reliable in suffocating-type words, but only
tended towards signicance in presidency-type words.
Taken together, our results suggest that some lengthening
sites are preferred (i.e. the primary stressed syllable and the word
onset), but that the magnitude of lengthening on these sites, as
well as the magnitude (and likelihood) of lengthening on other
sites, may depend on factors such as the speakers preference, the
stress pattern of the word, to some extent the particular word,
and, possibly, rate of speech.
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, the results presented here are consistent with
the view that several lengthening mechanisms are at work in
accented words. These include prominence-related lengthening,
edge-related lengthening, and spill-over lengthening from the
primary stressed syllable onto a following unstressed syllable
rhyme. These lengthening mechanisms appear to be associated
with distinct lengthening sites, of which the primary stressed
syllable and the onset of the word-initial syllable are preferred.
Lengthening magnitudes as well as the likelihood of lengthening
on other sites (i.e. the nal syllable, the secondary stressed
syllable rhyme and the rhyme of the unstressed syllable following
the primary stressed syllable) depend on a variety of factors,
including speaker choice, as well as prominence relationships
among syllables within a word.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by AHRC Grant no. B/RG/AN9288/
APN14615 to A. Turk.
Appendix A. Test materialsExperiment 1
Target wordslexical stress pattern 1000:
candidacies, presidency, seasonable, serviceable, creditable, market-
able, noticeable, protable, purchasable, desolately, negligibly
word 01: candidacies
10143
(Theres likely to be new stories again.)
Theres likely to be new candidacies again.
10144
(Theres likely to be good candidacies again.)
Theres likely to be new candidacies again.
word 2: presidency
10243
(Its been a stable opposition for him.)
10244
(Its been an awful presidency for him.)
word 03: seasonable
10343
(The temperatures were unbearable this time.)
The temperatures were seasonable this time.
10344
(The vegetables were seasonable this time.)
The temperatures were seasonable this time.
word 04: serviceable
10443
(The old tools will be kept for us.)
The old tools will be serviceable for us.
10444
(The old spanners will be serviceable for us.)
The old tools will be serviceable for us.
word 05: creditable
10543
(The stories were unbelievable this time.)
The stories were creditable this time.
10544
(The reports were creditable this time.)
The stories were creditable this time.
word 06: marketable
10643
(The new skills could be useful today.)
The new skills could be marketable today.
10644
(The new gadgets could be marketable today.)
The new skills could be marketable today.
word 07: noticeable
10743
(The newer changes are obscure today.)
The newer changes are noticeable today.
10744
(The newer differences are noticeable today.)
The newer changes are noticeable today.
6
In a previous publication reporting on syllable durations of democratic-type
words for four of the speakers data presented here (Turk & Dimitrova, 2007), we
concluded that all of the accentual lengthening sites on this word type were
optional, including the primary stressed syllable. This conclusion was made
because the speaker-specic analyses conducted for that paper showed one
subject without signicant lengthening on the primary stressed syllable (Speaker
2). The potential optionality of the primary stress syllable site is not apparent in
the analyses presented here. This type of optionality would have been supported
by a signicant contribution of by-Speaker random slopes for Accent to the
regression model for Syllable 3 in this word type. Our analyses did not show such
an effect, probably because Speaker 2 did show a small effect (6 ms lengthening)
in the expected direction.
word 08: protable
10843
(The new business is unreliable today.)
The new business is protable today.
10844
(The new company is protable today.)
The new business is protable today.
word 09: purchasable
10943
(The new goods are serviceable today.)
The new goods are purchasable today.
10944
(The new buildings are purchasable today.)
The new goods are purchasable today.
word 10: desolately
11043
(Shes likely to cry loudly tonight.)
Shes likely to cry desolately tonight.
11044
(Shes likely to react desolately tonight.)
Shes likely to cry desolately tonight.
word 11: negligibly
11143
(Theyre likely to differ extensively next time.)
Theyre likely to differ negligibly next time.
11144
(Theyre likely to interact negligibly next time.)
Theyre likely to differ negligibly next time.
Appendix B. Test materialsExperiment 2
Target wordslexical stress pattern 1020:
criticism, conscated, photocopy, commentator, supermarket, pre-
decessor, suffocating, dedicated, duplicated, persecuted, substituted
word 01: criticism
20143
(Its open to severe critique again.)
Its open to severe criticism again.
20144
(Its open to general criticism again.)
Its open to severe criticism again.
word 02: conscated
20243
(Artefacts have been discovered again.)
Artefacts have been conscated again.
20244
(Documents have been conscated again.)
Artefacts have been conscated again.
word 03: photocopy
20343
(Its luckily a good version this time.)
Its luckily a good photocopy this time.
20344
(Its luckily a faithful photocopy this time.)
Its luckily a good photocopy this time.
word 04: commentator
20443
(Its luckily a clever operator this time.)
Its luckily a clever commentator this time.
20444
(Its luckily a good commentator this time.)
Its luckily a clever commentator this time.
word 05: supermarket
20543
(Its luckily a city ice skating rink again.)
Its luckily a city supermarket again.
20544
(Its luckily a renovated supermarket again.)
Its luckily a city supermarket again.
word 06: predecessor
20643
(He was a careful legislator for us.)
He was a careful predecessor for us.
20644
(He was a worthy predecessor for us.)
He was a careful predecessor for us.
word 07: suffocating
20743
(Temperatures are nearly freezing there.)
20744
(Gases are nearly suffocating there.)
word 08: dedicated
20843
(Big audiences are simply appreciative again.)
Big audiences are simply dedicated again.
20844
(Big crowds are simply dedicated again.)
Big audiences are simply dedicated again.
word 09: duplicated
20943
(Their efforts are being neglected again.)
Their efforts are being duplicated again.
20944
(Their contributions are being duplicated again.)
Their efforts are being duplicated again.
word 10: persecuted
21043
(Activists are being deported now.)
Activists are being persecuted now.
21044
(Politicians are being persecuted now.)
Activists are being persecuted now.
word 11: substituted
21143
(Clearly the facts have been checked again.)
Clearly the facts have been substituted again.
21144
(Clearly the documents have been substituted again.)
Clearly the facts have been substituted again.
Target words - lexical stress pattern 2010:
democratic, condescending, condential, Minnesota, Manitoba,
conscation, persecution, suffocation, substitution, duplication,
dedication
Word 01: democratic
30143
(The newest laws are more authoritarian again.)
The newest laws are more democratic again.
30144
(The newest policies are more democratic again.)
The newest laws are more democratic again.
word 02: condescending
30243
(It was extremely disrespectful this time.)
It was extremely condescending this time.
30244
(It was obliquely condescending this time.)
It was extremely condescending this time.
word 03: condential
30343
(The reports were strictly ofcial this time.)
The reports were strictly condential this time.
30344
(The consultations were strictly condential this time.)
The reports were strictly condential this time.
word 04: Minnesota
30443
(Hell be ying to Massachusetts next week.)
Hell be ying to Minnesota next week.
30444
(Hell be sailing to Minnesota next week.)
Hell be ying to Minnesota next week.
word 05: Manitoba
30543
(Hell be ying to Newfoundland next week.)
Hell be ying to Manitoba next week.
30544
(Hell be driving to Manitoba next week.)
Hell be ying to Manitoba next week.
word 06: conscation
30643
(These goods are subject to approval again.)
These goods are subject to conscation again.
30644
(These tools are subject to conscation again.)
These goods are subject to conscation again.
word 07: persecution
30743
(They escaped from political discrimination again.)
They escaped from political persecution again.
30744
(They suffered from political persecution again.)
They escaped from political persecution again.
word 08: suffocation
30843
(The room was crammed to the brink again.)
The room was crammed to suffocation again.
30844
(The barn was crammed to suffocation again.)
The room was crammed to suffocation again.
word 09: substitution
30943
(Avoid any further repetition this time.)
Avoid any further substitution this time.
30944
(Neglect any further substitution this time.)
Avoid any further substitution this time.
word 10: duplication
31043
(Avoid any further repetition this time.)
Avoid any further duplication this time.
31044
(Ignore any further duplication this time.)
Avoid any further duplication this time.
word 11: dedication
31143
(It begins with a simple introduction again.)
It begins with a simple dedication again.
31144
(It begins with a short dedication again.)
It begins with a simple dedication again.
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