The phonetic exponency of phrasal accentuation in french and german

The acoustic-phonetic properties of words spoken with three different levels of accentuation (de-accented, pre-nuclear and nuclear accented in broad-focus and nuclear accented in narrow-focus) are examined in question-answer elicited sent-ences and iterative imitations (on the syllable da) produced by six French and six German speakers. Normalised parameter values allow a comparative weighting of the properties em-ployed in differentiating the three levels of accentuation. Clear differences are found between French and German in the weighting hierarchy of the acoustic properties. Index Terms: phrasal accentuation, broad and narrow focus, duration, fundamental frequency, spectral balance, formants 1