Quantifying macro-rhythm in English and Spanish: A comparison of tonal rhythm strength in two speech styles

Abstract

This study quantified macro-rhythm in English and Spanish in two speech styles. Macro-rhythm is defined as phrase-medial tonal rhythm (June 2014), and its strength is determined by the frequency of f0 alternations between peaks and valleys within a phrase, the uniformity of the rise-fall shape, and the regularity of distance intervals between high and low targets. The degree of strength can be predicted based on the number of phrase-level tones in a language’s tonal inventory, the most common type of phrase-medial tone, and the frequency of f0 rise per Prosodic Word. Based on these criteria, Spanish is predicted to have stronger macro-rhythm than English: the most common pitch accent is L+<H* in Spanish and H* in English, and Spanish tends to accent content words with greater regularity than English. Two experiments quantified and compared slope shape variability, the number of f0 alternations per Prosodic Word, and the regularity of distance intervals between tonal targets in read speech (Experiment 1) and newscaster speech (Experiment 2). The results of the variability, frequency, and distance measures support the prediction that Spanish has greater macro-rhythm strength than English.