Title of the article

6.Discussion and Conclusion

In section 4, we presented our phonological account of the restructuring within the framework of OT. Our main conclusion is that phonetic compression cannot be the sole explanation of the different rhythm patterns. Although the results cannot really confirm our hypothesis that there are different grammars, i.e. constraint rankings for different rates of speaking, there seems to be something that relates to speech rate. The fast speakers display different grammars, i.e. constraint rankings, for different rates of speaking. In their andante tempo, correspondence constraints prevail, whereas in allegro tempo markedness constraints dominate the correspondence ones. These preferences resemble the preferences of andante and allegro music. In both disciplines clashes are avoided in allegro tempo by means of enlarging the distances between beats.

In section 5, we attempted to confirm our phonological account with a phonetic analysis. Unfortunately, the phonetic correlates of stress - duration, pitch, intensity and spectral balance - do not show the expected and perceived differences in rhythm patterns in all pairs. Sluijter (1995) found out that duration is the main correlate of primary stress with spectral balance as an important second characteristic. In our analysis, however, neither differences in duration nor differences in spectral balance could identify secondary stress. Therefore, we have to conclude that our analysis supports earlier work by Shattuck Hufnagel et al (1994), Cooper and Eady (1986), Huss (1978) and Grabe and Warren (1995), who all claim that acoustic evidence for secondary stress cannot be found unambiguously. Although we did find some differences in duration, spectral balance or pitch, these differences were not systematically found in all pairs in which we perceived rhythmic variability. Finally, we discussed rhythmic timing as a cue for variable patterns. However, the hypothesis that the duration between prominent syllables is approximately equal in both andante and allegro speech was not confirmed by the auditive analysis of the data. It seems that rhythmic restructuring is more a matter of perception than of production. At this point, the question remains: are we fooled by our brains and is there no phonetic correlate of the perceived phonological stress shifts in the acoustic signal or do we have to conclude that the real phonetic correlate of secondary stress has yet to be found?