On the Prosody of Orkney and Shetland Dialects

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this study is to find experimental support for impressionisticclaims that there are prosodic differences between the dialects of Orkney andShetland. It was found that native listeners had no difficulty in discriminatingbetween Orkney and Shetland dialects when presented with speech fragmentscontaining only melodic information. The results of a subsequent acoustic investigationrevealed that there is a striking difference in pitch-peak location, which canbe characterised as a shift in the location of the entire rise, i.e. both the onset andthe peak. Shetland has early alignment, whereas the accent-lending rise in Orkneyoccurs late, so that in disyllabic words with initial stress the pitch peak does notcoincide with the stressed syllable, but is delayed until the post-stress syllable.Finally, the perceptual relevance of the prosodic parameters identified in theacoustic study was investigated.