Acoustic correlates of word stress: A cross-linguistic survey

Abstract

Abstract The study of the acoustic correlates of word stress has been a fruitful area of phonetic research since the seminal research on American English by Dennis Fry over 50 years ago. This paper presents results of a cross-linguistic survey designed to distill a clearer picture of the relative robustness of different acoustic exponents of what has been referred to as word stress. Drawing on a survey of 110 (sub-) studies on 75 languages, we discuss the relative efficacy of various acoustic parameters in distinguishing stress levels.