Notes on stress and word accent in Swedish

This paper provides a review of our earlier work on the realisation of stress and word accents in Swedish which serves as a pame for introducing voice source parameters in prosodic analysis. Duration and Fo measures have been related to continuously scaled estimates of perceivedprominence. Intensity variations appear to be less distinctive and are largely influenced by the overall breathgroup pattern. Increasing stress provides a moderate overall intensity increase combined with an additional high j-equency gain associated with a more effective voice source. Special attention is devoted to the covariation of the voice source excitation amplitude E, with Fo which displays a maximum at an Fo in the subjects mid register. This has consequences for the realisation of focal accent. A consistent correlate to increasing emphasis is the increasing contrast in vowel-consonant spectrum shape and intensity which in part is related to varying degrees of articulation-voice source interaction and also affects narrowly articulated vowels. These phenomena suggest the presence of a production oriented component in stress perception.