Pitch accents in Standard Lithuanian: Dependence of their phonetic cues on word stress and phrase intonation

This study investigates the phonetic realization of pitch accents, namely, acute and circumflex, in Standard Lithuanian, focusing on their dynamic F0 profiles and interaction with other prosodic elements. Using MANOVA, the study examined how pitch accents, emphasis, word stress, and intonation types (declarative vs. interrogative) influence the distribution of acoustic parameters, specifically duration, F0 acceleration, and F0 jerk. The results reveal that word stress and phrase focus, along with intonation, are the dominant factors in both phonation activation and control. In contrast, pitch accents exhibit minimal effect size and high sensitivity to phonetic context in this regard. In natural speech, phonational effort is prioritized at the phrase level, leaving other elements, such as pitch accents, with reduced and statistically irregular phonetic bases. These findings challenge the stability of pitch accents and the acute-circumflex distinction in Lithuanian and suggest their dephonologization in the current prosodic system.