The present study investigates the intonational marking of question words (qwords) in Tashlhiyt Berber. The first part of the study identifies a number of possible prosodic patterns on qwords as employed in conversational contexts. When they occur in a direct interrogative, qwords are marked with a rise in pitch towards a H(igh) target and a subsequent fall. By contrast, when the qword is embedded, no tonal targets occur on it. The second part consists of a detailed investigation of the alignment and scaling of qwords in utterance-initial position and in narrow focus. While the H target is consistently present somewhere on the qword, neither a local F0 maximum nor a high plateau region is characterized by stable alignment with any specific position in the segmental string. Scaling of the starting point (%L) and endpoint (H) of the rise characteristic of the qword exhibited a dependency on alignment: The rise is somewhat truncated if the peak is aligned early in the word. This study's results shed more light on the intonation system of Tashlhiyt and support earlier findings suggesting that tonal placement in this language is prone to a typologically unusual degree of variability.
Presently there is no consensus regarding the interpretation and analysis of the stress system of Moroccan Arabic. This paper tests whether the acoustic realisation of syllables support one widely adopted interpretation of lexical stress, according to which stress is either penultimate or final depending on syllable weight. The experiment reports on word-initial syllables that differ in presumed stress status. Target words were embedded in a carrier sentence within a scripted mock dialogue to ensure that the measurements reflect lexical stress rather than phrase-level prominence. Results from all four acoustic parameters tested (f0, duration, Centre of Gravity and vowel quality) showed that there were no differences as a function of presumed stress status, thus failing to support an interpretation according to which stressed syllables are acoustically differentiated. We consider the results in relation to previous claims and observations, and conclude that the absence of acoustic correlates of presumed stress is compatible with the view that Moroccan Arabic lacks lexical stress.
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