Stress Assignment by Spanish Learners

ABSTRACT

The phenomenon of Spanish stress has drawn the attention of linguists and therefore has been studied extensively within various phonological models: rule-based, constraint-based, and usage-based. The current study is focused on stress assignment (non-verbal) by analogy and is motivated by Aske [1]. The goal of this study is to provide some evidence for or against the proposed hypothesis that “stress resides in the lexicon and not in abstract rules” [1]. While Aske investigated mechanisms that govern stress assignment by native Spanish speakers, the present study was aimed to examine how Spanish learners assign stress. In this experiment 12 words - six -en#1 and six other –Vn#2 words - created by Aske [1] were used to observe whether Spanish learners access their lexicon for a similar pattern or they assign stress to new words according to generalizations. Another objective of this study was to examine if a correlation between proficiency level and stress assignment pattern exists. A possible effect of extralinguistic variables is analyzed. The results show that overall Spanish learners tend to assign stress by analogy and that proficiency level may affect performance..

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