Towards a prosodic typology of Kherwarian Munda languages: Santali of Assam

No Kherwarian lects have been studied experimentally using instrumental phonetic techniques. Here we begin this process looking at underived disyllabic lexical items in Assam Santali. Forms were recorded in isolation, in a quasi-focal frame "I ____ said", and in an out of focus frame "I ____ LOUDLY said, not SOFTLY" to control for focal intonation effects and those of phrasal or utterance intonation. Instrumental analysis suggests that Assam Santali always show prominence on the second syllable of disyllables, cued by intensity, f0 and duration.