Durational adjustment in Cantonese focus marking of native and non-native speakers

Abstract

The speech production of non-native speakers usually differs from that of native speakers, but very few investigations on the prosody of non-native speech have been conducted. Although duration has been regarded as an important acoustic cue for focus marking in Cantonese, precisely how native Cantonese speakers manipulate duration in different types of syllable structures remains to be explored. This study aims to fill these research gaps by examining how native and non-native speakers of Cantonese mark prosodic focus via durational adjustment. The native speakers demonstrated an asymmetrical effect of focal lengthening in different types of syllable structures in Cantonese, and the word-final nasals were expanded substantially. The non-native speakers revealed different patterns, which was attributed to their failure to fully acquire Cantonese focus marking. Discussions about the amount of focal lengthening in Cantonese and the acquisition and learnability of second language (L2) prosody are provided.