On the phonetics and phonology of "segmental anchoring" of F0:: evidence from German

We measured the alignment of F0 minima and maxima with segmental landmarks, in prenuclear rising accents in Northern and Southern German. As in earlier studies of other languages, we found consistent patterns of alignment. Both Northern and Southern German speakers align rises later than published data for Greek, English, and Dutch; Southern German speakers show later alignment than Northern speakers. The differences are small but significant. Moreover, native patterns of alignment are carried over into the German speakers' pronunciation of English. These findings argue against interpreting cross-language alignment differences in terms of distinct patterns of phonological association, and in favor of describing them in terms of quantitative phonetic realization rules. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.