Acoustic characterization of prenuclear accents of absolute interrogatives and neutral statements in central catalan

This paper contains the acoustic description of two prenuclear rising pitch accents (L+>H* and L*+H) found in Central Catalan. The analysis of the 330 utterances that build up the corpus focuses on pitch range and on the alignment of the tonal targets. According to the acoustic data collected for this research, L+>H* is a rising movement of about 6 st between the valley and peak and is characterized by a significant F0 rise in the stressed syllable. The L target of L+>H* accents is usually aligned with the beginning of the stressed syllable, while the H target is generally in the middle of the second post-tonic syllable. L*+H is a rising movement of about 10.2 st between the valley and peak and shows no significant F0 rise in the stressed syllable. The L target of L*+H accents is usually aligned with the end of the stressed syllable and the H target is usually in the second half of the second post-tonic syllable.