Social and Linguistic Speech Prosody

The Estonian quantity system involves three contrastive patterns referred to as short (Q1), long (Q2) and overlong (Q3) quantity degrees. Our previous studies have shown that for L2 learners the distinction between Q2 and Q3 is a difficult task in both production and perception. While Q1 and Q2 structures are always distinguished in the orthography, this is not the case in most Q2 and Q3 words excluding the words with plosives between first and second syllable vowels (see examples later in the text). Thus, the orthography might be the reason for the use of the same L2 production pattern for both Q2 and Q3. The current paper studies the role of L2 orthographic input on the L2 production of Estonian quantity degrees by two groups of subjects with different language backgrounds: Finnish and Russian. The material used in the study involves word structures with and without orthographic manifestation of quantity contrasts. The results confirm the role of Estonian orthography on the L2 pronunciation, however, the two L2 subject groups show different prosodic patterns.