Are there “shapers” and "aligners"? Individual differences in signalling pitch accent category
Résumé
One of the most studied phonetic dimensions diffe-rentiating pitch accent categories is tonal align-ment. However, when acoustic alignment data are broken down by individual patterns, one can notice great differences both in the size of the contrast as well as in the dispersion of the temporal values. Moreover, speakers appear to compensate for weaker alignment differences by enhancing shape differences in the contour, such as rise/fall slope. Here we present production data in two languages, German and Italian, for well-established pitch ac-cent contrasts. Our data suggest that the speakers. behavior can be represented on a continuum from most extreme "aligners" to "shapers".