A member of the Algonquin language family, Plains Cree is one of the most widely spoken Cree dialects, with 4,300 speakers across Canada (Statistics Canada, 2019). As of yet, accounts of word-level stress in Plains Cree have come primarily from impressionistic descriptions of the language (Wolfart, 2006). Specifically, the antepenult (of words with three or more syllables) and the final (of disyllabic words) are considered to be primarily stressed. In work that addresses the prosody of the language more formally, mention of the exact dimensions which characterize the purportedly stressed syllables is still neglected (Cook, 1991, and Rosen, 2006). Muehlbauer (2006) describes pitch as defining lexical stress, however he argues that primary stress is instead realized through a pitch fall on the penultimate.

In order to evaluate the above models, we analyzed publicly available recordings of Plains Cree to determine the position and acoustic properties of word-level stress. We used the recordings produced for the Canadian Bible Society (2010) featuring Mrs. Dolores Sand (Muskeg Lake Cree Nation). We measured the duration, F0, intensity, and quality of vowels in words with no vowel deletion. Vowels adjacent to glides or with aspiration were also omitted. Both short and long vowels were analysed.

The findings indicate that F0 is the strongest cue for stress. In words of three or more syllables, the antepenult has higher F0 than the other syllables, with the final syllable having the lowest F0. In contrast to the level F0 of short vowels, long vowels have a rising F0 on the antepenult. The results corroborate Muehlbauer's finding of a distinct F0 fall on the penult. Long vowels undergo a more dramatic pitch fall, facilitated by a lengthening of long vowels on the penultimate. In contrast, short vowels do not differ in duration across syllable positions.