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Research

My goal is to understand and potentially describe the nature of the building blocks of the prosodic and intonational structure. I am approaching this issue from three different, but related, points of research:

 

(a) the prosodic structure of Modern Greek and its acoustic demarcation (sandhi phenomena, intonational and durational marking of constituents)

(b) the intonational systems of dialects and dialectal variation

(c) the acquisition of suprasegmentals by L2 learners

 

Prosodic Structure

My MSc thesis investigated the alignment of prenuclear peaks in Greek and how  (whether) it signals prosodic constituency. My PhD thesis investigated the demarcation of prosodic levels in Modern Greek looking at a variety of acoustic and phonological cues (segmental sandhi, pre-boundary lengthening, intonational alignment and scaling). Output from this work includes:

 

  • Kainada, E. (2014). F0 alignment and scaling as markers of prosodic constituency. Proceedings of the 11th ICGL, Rhodes, pp. 580-590.

 

  • Kainada, E. (2012). The acoustics of post-nasal stop voicing in Standard Modern Greek. In Z. Gavriilidou, A. Efthymiou, E. Tomadaki & P. Kambakis-Vougiouklis (eds). Selected papers of the 10th International Conference on Greek Linguistics, pp. 320-9. Komotini/Greece: Democritus University of Thrace.

 

  • Kainada, E. (2012). The acoustics of prosodic conditioning of vowel hiatus resolution in Modern Greek. In Georgia Fragaki, Thanasis Georgakopoulos & Charalambos Themistocleous (eds) Current Trends in Greek Linguistics. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 246-269.

 

  • Kainada, E. (2010). Pre- and post-boundary lengthening in Modern Greek. In Proceedings of ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics 2010, pp. 69-72, EKPA, Athens.

 

  • Kainada, E. (2007). Prosodic Boundary Effects on Durations and Vowel Hiatus in Modern Greek. In Proceedings of the XVIth ICPhS, pp. 1225-1228, Saarbrücken, Universität des Saarlandes.

 

Dialectal Variation and intonational phonology

I am particularly interested in dialectal variation, especially as far as intonation and prosody is concerned. During 2011-12 I held my own post-doctoral grant investigating the acoustic details of pre-nuclear pitch accents from the dialect of Ipiros. Along with my supervisor, Mary Baltazani (University of Oxford), we have published the following:

 

  • Baltazani, M. & Kainada, E. (2015). Drifting without an anchor; how pitch accents withstand vowel loss. Language and Speech, 58(1):84-113.

 

  • Kainada, E. & Baltazani, M. (2013). Evaluating methods for eliciting dialectal speech. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Modern Greek Dialects and Linguistic Theory, eds. M. Janse, B. D. Joseph, A. Ralli and M. Bagriacik, pp. 101-123.

 

L2 acquisition of suprasegmentals and intonational phonology

Further pursuing my interest in identifying the units of intonational analysis and their phonetic and phonological nature, along with Angelos Lengeris (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) we investigate how Greek learners acquire English polar questions. Currently we are starting a project (along with Mary Baltazani) on the acquisition of Greek wh-questions by L2 learners. Additionally, along with Katerina Nicolaides, we are working on the project SpeakGreek, which is an online platform teaching Greek pronunciation for L2 or speech pathology populations. All the above have led to the following publications:

 

  • Kainada, E. & Lengeris, A. (in press). Native language influences on the production of second-language prosody. Journal of the International Phonetic Association.

 

  • Baltazani, M., Kainada, E., Lengeris, A. & Nikolaidis, K. (2015). The prenuclear field matters: questions and statements in Standard Modern Greek. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, UK.

 

  • Kainada, E. & Lengeris, A. (2013). The acquisition of English polar-question intonation by native Greek speakers.  Major Trends in Greek Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 20th ISTAL, pp. 141-155. London: Versitas de Gruyter.

 

  • Nikolaidis, K., Pananikolaou, G., Kainada, E. & Avdelidis, K. (2015). SpeakGreek: An online speech training tool for L2 pedagogy and clinical intervention. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Glasgow, UK.

 

  • Nikolaidou, K., Papanikolaou, G., Avdelidis, K., Kainada, E., Sfakianaki, A., Vrisis, L., Konstantoudakis, K., Startsenko, I. & Kelmali, E. (2014). SpeakGreek: development of an online feedback for pronunciation training. ACOUSTICS2014, Thessaloniki.

 

Segmental dialectal variation and typologies

Finally, I am working on the phonetics and phonology of Modern Greek and its dialects. In particular, along with Mary Baltazani, Nina Topintzi, Angelos Lengeris and Anthi Revithiadou I have worked on the vocalic systems of the dialect of Ipiros and Kozani Greek, on the phonetics and phonology of glides in Modern Greek and on acronyms and the issue of default stress in Modern Greek (see Publications for a full list of papers).

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