Adventures in Mita-reading: Examining Stress 'Rules' and Perception of Prosodic Prominence in the Māori Language

This paper presents the results of a perception study investigating the location of prosodic prominence in the Māori language. 40 Māori-familiar participants listened to Māori sentences from speakers of three age groups with birthdates spanning over 100 years. In light of older speakers’ comments that the language has changed, the participants’ perception of syllabic prominence on a phrase-by-phrase basis was compared to existing ‘stress rules’ established for the language in the 1960s. Alignment results show that often the perceived prominences do match the predicted stress locations, but there is also a tendency for extra perceived prominence in some positions, as well as mismatch (including apparently absent stresses). A difference is observed between results for historical speakers, present-day older speakers and present-day young speakers, providing initial support for the older speakers’ perception that the sound of Māori has changed.