Mon-Khmer Studies: A Journal of Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures

This paper reports a study which examined the rhythmic patterns in Vietnamese polysyllabic words and their acoustic correlates, particularly the scope of forward planning, reflected in rhythmic prominences and edge/boundary effects; modified by or in interaction with (corrective) focus effects. The aim of the study is pursued by examining the rhythmic patterns and their acoustic correlates in polysyllabic reduplicative words (2-,3-,4-,5-,6- syllable pseudo-words). Ten native speakers of Vietnamese (Saigon dialect) participated in the study. The results showed that there is a tendency of syllable coupling indicated mainly by syllable duration pattern and supported by the native listeners’ perception results, suggesting that polysyllabic words in Vietnamese tend to be parsed into bi-syllabic iambic feet with a rightward or retrograde rhythmic pattern, suggesting that bi-syllabic right-headed foot is a prosodic unit above the syllable in Vietnamese.