A first exploration of word- and phrase-final f0 movements in spontaneous Yali

The current study reports a first explorative analysis of f0 movements in final and non-final positions in Yali, a Trans-New Guinea language spoken in the Papuan highlands in Indonesia. The language is understudied, in particular for its prosody. The available literature hints at the existence of word-level f0 movements. However, acoustic analyses are lacking and it remains a challenge to disentangle word-level f0 movements from those at the phrase level, due to their interaction. This study analyses spontaneously produced speech acoustically for f0 in final and non-final syllables at the word and phrase level, and by means of a cluster analysis to reveal the most common f0 patterns at either prosodic level. Results provide strong support for word-final rising f0 movements that are particularly clearly realised in non-final words in the phrase. The outcomes are tentatively interpreted within their phonological context and in terms of the different levels that could be distinguished in Yali prosody.