Phrasing in peninsular Spanish and the autosegmental metrical model

In this study the tonal influence provoked by the intermediate phrase edge rising tone (H-) on the preceding final accent (T*) is analyzed. The research is carried out with an Autosegmental Metrical (AM) methodology. A corpus composed of 32 micro-discourses produced by an informant from Madrid in formal fashion is studied. The results show that the presence of the H- in front of the last tonal accent causes changes in the tonal taxonomy. The paroxytone and proparoxytone T* presents a peak delay, the primitive is L* + H due to the H- continuation rise on the post-tonic syllable. The oxytone T* is not affected by the edge tone due to the final position of T*. The phonological association takes place on the accented syllable and overlaps the H- continuation rise. The primitive is L + H*. These results suggest a secondary phonological association of final T* with the H- edge tone.