Mora-timed, stress-timed, and syllable-timed rhythm classes: Clues in English speech production by bilingual speakers

Abstract A growing body of literature suggests that the world's languages can be classified into three rhythm classes: mora-timed languages, stress-timed and syllable-timed languages. However, scholars cannot agree on which rhythmic measures discriminate classes most satisfactorily whether speech rate factor should considered. In this study, we analyze production by bilingual speakers, compare their with monolingual speakers ESL speakers. Our metric measure results show when is taken consideration, a combination two for vowels, Varco?V vocalic nPVI , reliable in discriminating different classes, while consonants do not seem effective, included or not.