The role of prosodic accentuation in the production of English consonant clusters

Van Praet, Wout [UCL] Verbeke, Gil

This paper studies the effect of prosodic accentuation on the production of English consonant clusters of [s] followed by a plosive consonant (i.e., [sC] clusters). Previous studies on consonant cluster production found that other prosodic factors, such as proximity to a strong prosodic boundary, influenced the length of the clusters, of their component consonants, and of the overlap between these consonants. The effect of prosodic accentuation (or ‘sentence accentuation’), however, has not been studied in sufficient detail. This paper fills this gap by examining if the production of consonant clusters is affected by their occurrence in primary accented, secondary accented and non-accented position. The effect of prosodic accentuation is then compared to the effect of proximity of the consonant cluster to a strong prosodic boundary and of the strength of the ‘break index’ following the consonant cluster. In doing so, this study observed that prosodic accentuation is a more important factor influencing the production of English [sC] clusters than proximity to a strong prosodic boundary or prosodic boundary strength. These findings, we argue, provide new insights into the production of English consonant clusters, while also adducing evidence for the relevance of a three-way distinction between primary, secondary and non-accentuation.