LINGUIST List 8.370

Mon Mar 17 1997

Qs: Frequency lowering, Dialectology, Wolio

Editor for this issue: Susan Robinson <suelinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Martin Weikmann, Frequency lowering in accents
2. T&FE1V1&C1&D2S0=0S7=60, cross-dialectal prosodic features studies
3. Alan Dench, Q: Wolio - S.E. Sulawesi

Dear list members!

Last week we discussed in our class about different forms of accents and
stress. So it seems natural, that increase in intensity and length will be
possible tools of generating a word accent.
As for the voice - base frequency, the natural way is to raise the
frequency to obtain accent. This seems again natural, since increase of
subglottql pressure correlates with intensity and will automatically
result in increase of frequency.
But, there are languages (e.g. swiss german, danisch), where the opposite
is the case, the accent is marked by lowerng of the basic frequency. So
this is surely the marked case in contrast to the raise of the basic
frequency, which may be seen as the natural case.

My questions are now: 
1.) Are there any other languages showing this (or similar) phenomena?
2.) Are there any theories explaining this phenomena, especially
 diachronic generation of this?

Thanks in advance

Martin Weikmann
weikmanngewi.kfunigraz.ac.at

 I am interested in looking at the prosodic features of a
couple of dialects; however, I'm having a hard time finding other
studies devoted to this area of dialectology. In fact, I don't know of
any studies which have examined this area. Does anyone know of any
that he/she may suggest? I'd be happy to post the results of this
posting.

 I can be reached at aa276988oak.cats.ohiou.edu

Thanks in advance,
Ashlea Allen

I have a student who is a native speaker of Wolio
(S.E. Sulawesi) and who is keen to work on some aspect
of his own language.

We would be very grateful for any information about recent
work on the language (published or unpublished), or
suggestions about where to seek information.

Many thanks in advance,

Alan Dench
Centre for Linguistics
University of Western Australia
http://www.arts.uwa.edu.au/LingWWW/CforLHome.html