Chapter 1 Introduction ........................................ 11
1.1 Research questions and the structure of the study ......... 11
1.2 Background information on the Mordvin languages ........... 13
1.3 Dialects of Moksha ........................................ 15
1.4 Segmental structure of Moksha ............................. 15
1.4.1 Vowels ............................................. 16
1.4.2 Consonants ......................................... 20
1.4.3 Summary ............................................ 22
Chapter 2 Survey of previous research on word stress in
Moksha ......................................................... 24
2.1 Introduction .............................................. 24
2.2 Early views concerning word stress in Moksha .............. 25
2.2.1 The issue of original Mordvin stress ............... 25
2.2.2 The question of unstressed vowel reduction ......... 28
2.3 Findings on the features of Moksha stress in pre-
experimental works ........................................ 29
2.4 Empirical data available on Moksha stress ................. 32
2.5 Summary ................................................... 34
Chapter 3 Acoustic manifestations of stress in Moksha ......... 36
3.1 Introduction .............................................. 36
3.2 Materials and method ...................................... 36
3.3 Data analysis ............................................. 38
3.3.1 Duration ........................................... 38
3.3.1.1 Duration of vowels in stressed vs.
unstressed syllables ...................... 39
3.3.1.2 Other factors conditioning vowel
durations ................................. 41
3.3.1.3 Summary ................................... 46
3.3.2 Vowel quality ...................................... 47
3.3.2.1 Vowels in the productions of female
informants ................................ 48
3.3.2.2 Vowels in the productions of male
informants ................................ 54
3.3.2.3 Summary ................................... 59
3.3.3 Fundamental frequency .............................. 62
3.3.3.1 Disyllabic words .......................... 63
3.3.3.2 Trisyllabic words ......................... 66
3.3.3.3 Polysyllabic words ........................ 67
3.3.3.4 Summary ................................... 72
Chapter 4 Conclusions ......................................... 74
Bibliography ................................................... 79
Appendix 1 Geographical distribution of Moksha dialects ....... 85
Appendix 2 List of test words ................................. 89
Appendix 3 Additional data obtained in the course of
acoustic analysis .................................. 91
I Data of vowel durations ............................ 91
II Data of vowel quality .............................. 93
III Data of fundamental frequency ..................... 100
Appendix 4 Spectrograms of 1-6 syllable words produced in
phrase-final position (speaker JM) ................ 108
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