Fundamental frequency and perceived prominence of accented syllables

Abstract

In natural speech, accented words may differ as to the degree of perceived prominence. At the acoustic level, two aspects of fundamental frequency (F0) variation may be responsible for the perceived prominence differences: the magnitude of F0 changes and the relative frequencies of F0 maxima. Two experiments, with the same group of subjects, addressed the question of which aspect of F0 better predicts perceived prominence. Both experiments used reiterant speech with synthesized F0 contours. The speech materials consisted of ‘mamamamamamama’ utterances with F0 maxima on the second and penultimate syllables (“P1” and “P2,” respectively). In one experiment, subjects adjusted the frequency of P2 so that it was judged to have the same pitch as P1, for different rates of baseline declination. In the second experiment, subjects adjusted P2 so that it was judged to have the same prominence as P1, again for different declination rates. The results to be presented are relevant for refining the theory of pitch accentuation. For instance, if perceived prominence is predictable from F0 maxima, both experiments should give the same results.