The phonetic manifestation of secondary stress in Spanish

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the acoustic correlates of secondary stress in Spanish. These included duration, pitch, and intensity. According to Navarro­Tomas (1957), Spanish has rhythmic stress, since native speakers perceive alternations between stressed and unstressed syllables at the level of the phrase. Navarro-Tomas suggests that these alternations are due to intensity changes. This observation has been formalized by Roca (1986) and Harris (1983, 1991). Harris (1991) claims that secondary stress is located in alternate syllables at the right or left of the primary lexically assigned stressed syllable. Secondary stress, according to this phonological account, is a different level of prominence from primary stress and lack of stress. Nonetheless, these phonological descriptions do not give any phonetic definition of the type of acoustic prominence expected.