Acoustic correlates of prominence in Yawarana

Yawarana (Cariban) is a critically endangered language of Venezuela, with 20–30 speakers and little published research beyond wordlists. In these wordlists, orthographic indications of stress and/or vowel length are inconsistent. As part of our language documentation project, we examine acoustic correlates of prominence in Yawarana. Many other languages in the Cariban family have a clear rhythmic stress system, with vowel lengthening and pitch excursion marking prominence; Yawarana does not mark prominence in the same way. Even so, in some situations, native speakers do appear to attend to stress (i.e., when correcting the pronunciation of language learners). Here, we ask what the acoustic correlates of prominence are, paying particular attention to intensity, pitch, and duration information. We are examining over 200 lexical items produced by four native speakers. These items are repeated in isolation, produced in carrier phrases, and produced in narratives and conversations. We compare measures of promi...