Prosodic perceptive thresholds in Spanish: intensity and duration

Abstract

The following study aims at examining prosodic thresholds of perception for Spanish, parting from the algorithm of analysis offered by the Prosodic Analysis of Speech (PAS) model by Cantero (2019). The approach is based on defining the prosodic values for each syllable after a process of standardization, by relativizing the prosodic value associated with each syllable to that of the preceding one. As the perception threshold in the case of melody was defined as 10% for Spanish (FONT-ROTCHÉS; MATEO RUIZ, 2011), this research investigates, by the help of an anonymous perceptive test submitted to 30 native Spanish speakers, what prosodic relative values of intensity and duration change with respect to the previous syllable make a syllable perceived as prosodically prominent. The informants of the test had to decide whether in an invented Spanish word syllables with different range of increase in intensity or duration result in perceptibility as far as prosodic prominence is concerned, and whether these prosodic cues contribute to stress identification. As for the results, a 30% of increase in duration with respect to the previous syllable is already perceivable, but intensity growth of 5% is not, and neither of these thresholds trigger automatically stress identification. The results of the research can be used as a point of reference in speech synthesis programs.