Disjuncture as a Cue to Constructs

Abstract

It is commonly thought that constructs such as light housekeeper and lighthouse‐keeper are distinguished by means of stress differences alone. The significant factor in “stress” is presumed to be intensity, pitch changes (if any) being incidental. Spectrograms reveal another factor: “disjunctures,” or gaps between the syllables, which seem to correspond in width to the closeness of the semantic bond. Tests were therefore devised to oppose stress and disjuncture in order to determine whether either cue was paramount in making the distinction. The words light, house, and keeper were recorded with wide pauses between them as well as in the contexts (He's a) lighthouse‐keeper and (She's a) light housekeeper (with contrastive stress on light). By shortening and lengthening the disjunctures of the three versions, each was made to resemble each other version, while leaving the stresses and pitches unaltered. Listeners judged each utterance, regardless of its original source, to mean what the disjunctures conveye...

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