Välted muutuvas rannikumurdes
Quantities in the Changing Coastal Dialect

Summary/Abstract: Based on the acoustic analysis, the article discusses the system of quantity degrees of the coastal dialect. The present study compares sound durations and fundamental frequencies, measured in the spontaneous speech of informants of different generations, with results of other studies. The analysis of the aver- age durational ratios of the vowels of the initial and successive syllables of the Q1, Q2 (standard language) and Q3 words of the vowel-centred model shows in the first place that similarly to the Estonian common language and other dialects, the vowel of the second syllable of the Q1 words of the coastal dialect is also half-long. Considering the average durational ratios of the Q2 and Q3 words, some informants slightly differentiate between the words of the second and the third quantity, but this difference is dissimilar to that in the common language and, therefore, we cannot talk about phonological quantity alternation. The study shows that the role of fundamental frequency in differentiating between the Q2 and Q3 words can be neglected. Since fundamental frequency has a secondary role in differentiating between quantities, it may also be, in addition to making a smaller difference between the Q2 and Q3 words than in the common language, the very phonetic property which makes us sense the quantities of the coastal dialect as different from those of the common language. Materials from both the coastal and the north-eastern dialect indicate that quantity has a primary role in the emergence of distinction between the second and third quantity degree in the dialect group of the north-eastern coast.

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