An Acoustic Analysis of Stress Realization in English NN Compounds by Korean Speakers

This study examines how Korean EFL learners realize lexical stress in English NN compounds, focusing on the effects of compound structure and lexical familiarity. The results show that learners generally produced higher pitch on the first constituent and exhibited limited differentiation in intensity, with stress consistently placed on the first constituent regardless of canonical assignment. The arcsine-transformed analyses revealed that pitch was the predominant cue in ‘argument+ head’ compounds, whereas in ‘attribute+head’ neither cue served as a reliable marker. Lexical familiarity enhanced acoustic contrast, affecting both cues in ‘attribute+head’ compounds but mainly intensity in ‘argument+ head’ compounds, highlighting intensity’s greater sensitivity to familiarity. Overall, the findings suggest that Korean learners’ stress production is shaped more by cue selection strategies and familiarity effects than by native-like stress assignment rules.