Word Lengthening as a Function of Utterance Position: A Multi-Corpus Study

Abstract

Efficient turn-taking requires interlocutors to predict turn endings within a few hundred milliseconds. Beyond syntactic and pragmatic completion, prosody (especially pre-boundary lengthening) supports projection. We test whether turn-final words are longer than mid-sentence words, whether this reflects prosodic modification rather than lexical choice, and where within the word it concentrates. We analyze four corpora spanning styles and two languages (English, Spanish): Switchboard, Columbia Games, BU Radio, and Glissando, with >500 speakers, $39{,}470$ turn-final and $206{,}268$ mid-sentence tokens across $\sim39{,}500$ turns. Turn-final words are longer (mean ${\approx}191$\,ms; $d=1.14$). The effect persists in matched-word, within-speaker comparisons ($80$\,ms; $p<0.001$) and is localized mainly to the final syllable ($d=0.89$). Turn-final lengthening thus emerges as a robust, localized cue to floor transfer.