The patterns of pre-boundary lengthening in German

It has been observed for English that pre-boundary lengthening (PBL) is initiated on the syllable with main stress of the phrase-final word. Furthermore, the results of some studies suggest that the scope of PBL varies depending on the segmental composition of the phrase-final word. The present study investigates the scope of PBL in German. We report on a production experiment that tested for the position of word stress (penultimate vs. antepenultimate) and the presence/absence of an additional segment at the end of the word (CV.CV.CV vs. CV.CV.CVC) as predictors for the initiation of PBL. The results revealed that the initiation of PBL occurred on the stressed syllable across conditions. Furthermore, PBL was initiated later when a coda consonant was added to the words with penultimate stress, shifting the initiation point from the onset consonant to the following vowel of the stressed syllable. These observations suggest that the nuclear vowel of the main stress syllable serves as an anchor for PBL, but the initiation occurs earlier if the amount of material between the nuclear vowel and the prosodic boundary is limited. Thus, in line with findings from other languages, the scope of PBL in German is determined by the prosodic structure as well as the segmental composition of the phrase-final word.