Phonological Conditioning of F0 Target Alignment

Recent research on the alignment between F0 “targets” (e.g. maxima and minima) and the segmental string show that F0 targets exhibit “segmental anchoring”, i.e. they co-occur with specific segmental landmarks such as the onset of a stressed syllable. Undoubtedly there are principles of speech production at work in this phenomenon, but the purpose of the paper is to demonstrate that phonological structure must also form part of our eventual explanation for segmental anchoring. In studies of both Dutch and Japanese, phenomena of alignment are observed that seem to preclude phonetic explanation (in terms of e.g. segment duration) and to require reference to elements of phonological structure (e.g. distinctions of vowel length, sub-syllabic structure).