Diana Krull & Olle Engstrand

In the Proceedings of Fonetik 2003, the XVI Swedish Phonetics Conference, Lövånger, June 2-4, 2003. Phonum 9: 133-136.

ABSTRACT

Formal and casual Swedish and Spanish were analyzed to replicate previous observations suggesting a temporal equalization of syllable-sized units in casual as opposed to elaborated speaking styles. Durations and standard deviations appearing in casual Swedish tended to resemble those in Spanish, and durational differences between unstressed and stressed units in casual Swedish were smaller than those observed in more elaborated Swedish. This corroborated the view that rhytmic patterns associated with stress- and syllable-timing may arise as consequences of more primary phonetic intentions rather than themselves representing such intentions.

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