Break indices of level 2 (BI 2) mark two different types of breaks:
- a perceived disjuncture with no intonation effect
- an apparent intonational boundary but with no slowing or other break cues
A break indice of level 2 is supposed to mark the edge of a phonological phrase, a level of phrasing below the intermediate phrase. As for the existence of the phonological phrase in Spanish, this is an unresolved issue.
This domain generally includes the lexical head, the elements on the head’s nonrecursive side, and a following nonbranching phrase within its maximal projection (see Oliva 1992).
In other Romance languages the phonological phrase is the domain of application for several phonological processes.
For example, in Florence Italian, Radoppiamento Sintattico (or Syntactic Redoubling), Final Lengthening and Stress Retraction are phenomena that apply at the phonological phrase level (Nespor & Vogel 1986, 1989).
And in French and in Brazilian Portuguese, Stress Retraction also applies within the phonological phrase domain (see Post 1999, and Sandalo & Truckenbrodt 2002, respectively).
In Spanish, no conclusive evidence has been found thus far.
Unlike other Romance languages, the phonological phrase is not the domain of sandhi processes in Spanish: for example, vowel deletion and vowel merging processes can even apply across two intermediate phrases (e.g., (Puede que no le guste) (el regalo que le he comprado) ‘S/He might not like what I bought for him/her’, pronounced with just one short vowel across the two domains).
On the other hand, from a perceptual point of view, oftentimes transcribers perceive a clear phrasing break at the end of a domain which does not have a tonal marking.
Thus, the phonological phrase level might have subtle manifestations in the prosody of Spanish, and we thus leave open the possibility of its existence.
There is also the possibility to use this level to mark non phonological prosodic disjunctures, such as hesitations, etc. |
