The aim of this research is to examine whether Spanish speakers transfer some accentual acoustic properties from Spanish to French L2. Native Spanish learners of French and native speakers of French were instructed to read French sentences containing a trisyllabic target pseudoword. In some sentences, the pseudoword was in a stressed position, while in others it was in an unstressed position. Acoustic analysis (duration, F0 and amplitude) were performed on the three vowels of the pseudoword, as well as on the first vowel following the pseudoword. Results showed that Spanish speakers have acquired the knowledge that, contrary to Spanish, stress is fixed in French (on the last syllable), but not that stress is realized at the accentual phrase level rather than at the word level as in Spanish.

Index Terms: accentual transfer, Spanish L1, French L2, acoustic parameters, syllabic structure.