Rhythmic patterns and variation in young adult speakers with Southern British and Scottish English accents
Résumé
This study offers some insight into Scottish English (SE) prosodic rhythm as compared to Standard British English (SBE), based on an analysis of function word reduction in six young adults. A vast array of reduced realisations is observed in both varieties, and no differences emerge between SBE and SE. It is proposed that if SE is more syllable-timed than SBE, then this difference has to be found either in the durational patterns of stressed syllables, or in those of unstressed syllables in lexical words. It is also suggested that duration might be secondary in the comparison of rhythm in these two accents, and that a one-dimensional temporal approach might ignore the effects of simultaneous phonetic processes that are none the less crucial to rhythm.