The phonetics and phonology of the Polish vocative chant

The Polish vocative chant is a melody used, as in other languages, to call someone for a routine reason. Three repetitions of 12 Polish names (1-4 syllables long, 3 names per syllable count) were elicited from 16 speakers using a Discourse Completion Task. The results, based on data from 11 speakers (6 female), showed that the contour ends in a small rise (not a plateau as in other languages), while the initial rise aligns with the end of the stressed syllable. In polysyllabic names, the contour starts with low F0 and the rise begins immediately before the (always penultimate) stress. Based on these data and comparisons with contours used in wh-questions and in other types of Polish vocatives, we analyse this contour as LH* !H-H%. The implications of this analysis for autosegmental models of intonation are discussed.