Electromyographic study of focus and accent in Japanese.

Abstract

In this paper, the physiological mechanism underlying the voice fundamental frequency (F0) control was investigated at the phrasal level. A new method of correlation analysis between cricothyroid muscle activity and the resulting F0 contour was proposed and applied to speech material varying in accentedness and focal conditions. Examinations of the difference between the observed F0 contours and the F0 contours estimated from the cricothyroid activity revealed interesting deviation tendencies that are related to the linguistic properties of speech material: accentedness; location of phrase in a sentence; and the presence vs. absence of focus. Another interesting finding was the strong suppression of the sternohyoid muscle activity under focus. The suppression was stronger in unaccented phrases than in accented ones. An interpretation of the suppression and its relationship to accent was proposed based on the notion of laryngeal state function proposed in Atkinson (1978).