2018/02/01 by Beata Łukaszewicz
Computer Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Linguistic Variation and Morphology #Phonetics and Phonology Research #Speech Recognition and Synthesis
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0952675717000392
openalex publication_date 2018/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
In her study published in this journal, Newlin-Łukowicz (2012) calls into question the existence of bidirectional stress systems. The argument hinges on the failure to detect acoustic correlates of word-internal subsidiary stress in Polish, the language hitherto considered to be a classic example of metrical bidirectionality. This paper reappraises the issue, reporting on an acoustic study of paired five- and six-syllable words in Polish (e.g. ˎpomido′rowy – ˎpomiˎdoro - ′wego ). The results indicate that the words differ significantly with respect to relative consonant duration (PVI values) in the onset of the third syllable, depending on whether the syllable bears subsidiary stress (as in six-syllable words) or remains unstressed (as in five-syllable words). Similar effects are reported in the initial syllable, but not in the second syllable, which remains consistently unstressed. The conclusion is that Polish has iterative stress, corroborating its traditional description as having a bidirectional stress system.