Phonology and phonetics of sonority-driven stress This project (my dissertation) investigates the phonology and phonetics of sonority-driven stress. One of the goals is to present acoustic evidence for (or against) sonority-driven stress. The typology of sonority-driven stress can be classified into two types: (i) stress is sensitive to peripheral vowel distinctions, and (ii) stress is solely sensitive to central vowels. For the former case, I worked on the metrical structure in Gujarati (Indo-Aryan), focusing on the claim that stress is attracted to the highly sonorous vowel [a] from the default stress position. For the latter case, I am currently working on the metrical structure in Paiwan (Austronesian), focusing on the claim that stress avoids schwa in default stress position. Feel free to email me if you are interested in reading my draft on Gujarati (accepted with minor revisions at Phonology). Default and focal prosodic phrasing This project investigates the default/focal prosodic phrasing in Taiwan Mandarin (syntactically) flat structure. Specifically, I test how Taiwan Mandarin speakers read a string of same numbers (default phrasing). By alternating one number at a time in the string, I test whether Taiwan Mandarin speaks read the string of numbers in different ways (focal phrasing). It is found that binarity and focus play important roles in prosodic phrasing in Taiwan Mandarin. WCCFL 34 [paper] Interaction between phrase-final lengthening and prosodic structure This project proposes a unified theory for the interaction between phrase-final lengthening and prosodic structure. I argue that phrase-final lengthening obeys two properties: cumulativity and entailment. The theory makes a typology. I argue that phrase-final lengthening in Taiwan Mandarin provides evidence for the proposed theory. CLS 53 [slides] |