Compensatory effects of foot structure in segmental durations of Soikkola Ingrian disyllables and trisyllables

Abstract

This acoustic study explores compensatory influences of foot structure on segmental duration and quantity in the foot nuclei of 22 trisyllabic and four disyllabic structures in vanishing Soikkola Ingrian (Finnic). A robust ternary quantity contrast of consonants is confirmed for both disyllables and trisyllables. While in the shortest disyllables the contrast is “pure” (i.e., not significantly reinforced by the durations of other segments), in all trisyllables it is enhanced through the durationally inverse (compensatory) effects in other segments. In this, the situation in trisyllables is closer to that attested in other languages with ternary consonantal quantity than the situation in disyllables. The phonological quantity contrast has been lost from the second syllable vowel of trisyllables, and its duration is now inversely related to the first syllable complexity. In the segments preceding this vowel, all compensatory effects are purely phonetic. Shorter segmental durations and stronger compensatory effects in trisyllables than in disyllables indicate tendencies for both polysegmental and polysyllabic shortening. We discuss a potential relation of observed compensatory effects of shortening and lengthening (a “half-long” vowel) to foot isochrony and metrical stress.