Naive subjects' assignments of stress ranks

In three experiments, it is investigated to what extent naive listeners agree in ranking the stress of syllables in Dutch words. Four factors influencing the scores are isolated: the position of the primary stress, the awareness of rhythmic patterns, a tendency to assign prominence to the initial syllable and a segmental factor which disallows prominence on syllables with schwa. As these factors oppose or strengthen each other, they explain fluctuations in the subjects' agreement.