Duration of syllable-sized units in casual and elaborated Finnish: a comparison with Swedish and Spanish

Recordings of Finnish casual dialogue and careful reading were analyzed auditorily and on spectrograms. Syllables on the phonological level were compared to syllable-sized units (C ́V ́s) on the phonetic level. Comparisons with existing Swedish and Spanish data revealed several differences: Finnish had much less temporal equalization of syllable-sized units in casual speech than Swedish, and even slightly less than Spanish. Instead, there was a greater decrease in the number of C ́V ́s. In all three languages, the duration of a C ́V ́ was partly dependent on its size. In Finnish, however, (in contrast to Swedish and, to a lesser degree, Spanish) C ́V ́ duration was only marginally affected by lexical stress. Finnish, like Spanish, had rhythmic patterns typical of syllable-timed languages in both speaking styles, while Swedish changed from a more stresstimed pattern in careful reading to a more syllable-timed in casual speech.