Metrical Feet Research Articles

Multitimescale Dynamical Interactions Between Speech Rhythm and Gesture

Temporal patterns in human movement, and in speech in particular, occur on multiple timescales. Regularities in such patterns have been observed between speech gestures, which are relatively quick movements of articulators (e.g., tongue fronting and lip protrusion), and also between rhythmic units (e.g., syllables and metrical feet), which occur more slowly. Previous work has shown that patterns in both domains can be usefully modeled with oscillatory dynamical systems. To investigate how rhythmic and gestural domains interact, an experiment was conducted in which speakers performed a phrase repetition task, and gestural kinematics were recorded using electromagnetic articulometry. Variance in relative timing of gestural movements was correlated with variance in rhythmic timing, indicating that gestural and rhythmic systems interact in the process of planning and producing speech. A model of rhythmic and gestural planning oscillators with multifrequency coupling is presented, which can simulate the observed covariability between rhythmic and gestural timing.

Modelling the architecture of phonetic plans: Evidence from apraxia of speech

In theories of spoken language production, the gestural code prescribing the movements of the speech organs is usually viewed as a linear string of holistic, encapsulated, hard-wired, phonetic plans, e.g., of the size of phonemes or syllables. Interactions between phonetic units on the surface of overt speech are commonly attributed to either the phonological encoding stage or the peripheral mechanisms of the speech apparatus. Apraxia of speech is a neurogenic disorder which is considered to interfere with the mechanisms of phonetic encoding. Analyses of apraxic speech errors have suggested that phonetic representations have a non-linear, hierarchically nested structure. This article presents a non-linear probabilistic model of the phonetic code, which embraces units from a sub-segmental level up to the level of metrical feet. The model is verified on the basis of accuracy data from a large sample of apraxic speakers.

The domain of phonetic encoding in apraxia of speech: Which sub‐lexical units count?

Background: Apraxia of speech (AOS) is generally viewed as a disorder of phonetic encoding. According to current theories, the phonetic encoding process is considered to be based on linear strings of holistic speech motor representations of the size of sub‐lexical units (e.g., phonemes or syllables). This type of model predicts that error rate in apraxia of speech is proportional to the number of phonetic encoding units in an utterance and is not systematically influenced by structural factors originating above or below the level of the critical unit. Aims: In the present study we tested this prediction for five models based on different units of phonetic encoding. Methods and Procedures: Ten patients with AOS were examined with a list of words of varying phonological complexity. Phoneme errors in word repetition were counted in different ways, according to five models postulating different domains of phonetic encoding. Linear regression analyses were used to examine the scores obtained for these models for influences of structural factors. Outcomes & Results: No sublexical unit could be identified that was not systematically influenced by one of the structural factors describing the materials. Major influencing factors were (1) the complexity of syllable constituents and (2) the number of metrical feet in a word. Conclusions: A model of phonetic encoding in apraxia of speech is proposed that is based on a hierarchy of structural relationships rather than on linearly ordered, holistic programming units. This model may also contain clues for a theory of normal processing mechanisms. This study was supported by a grant from the German research foundation (DFG; ZI 469/10‐2). We would like to thank ReHa‐Hilfe e.V. for additional support. We are also grateful to our colleagues from the Neuropsychological Clinic, Bogenhausen Hospital, München, for their collaboration on clinical issues, and to Katrin Lindner and Patrizia Noël for discussions of phonological issues. Moreover, we would like to express our gratitude to the participants of this study.

Combinatorics for Metrical Feet

Combinatorics for Metrical Feet Authors William J. Idsardi U. Maryland PDF Article info Impact Citations Published at 23. September 2008 https://doi.org/10.5964/bioling.8645 Issue: Vol. 2 No. 2-3 (2008) Section: Briefs Keywords: Fibonacci combinatorics metrical feet Share: Z PlumX Dimensions Views: Total Abstract PDF 13 9 4

Experimental evidence for optimal and minimal metrical structure of German word prosody

In the present paper a constraint-based description of German word prosody is suggested in which the constraint ranking is in crucial parts supported empirically by experimental findings from a pseudoword production task and from studies using electrophysiological measurements. It is shown how stress patterns of existing German words as well as experimental results on diverse prosodic structures can be expressed by minimal violations of prosodic constraints. In this way, our analysis aims to gain more insights into the question, which metrical structures are least marked in German. Furthermore, an aspect of minimality in metrical systems is considered, which regards the structure of metrical feet in German. Can we establish strict binarity of feet or do we find evidence for ternary structures?

A IMPORTÂNCIA DA QUANTIDADE SILÁBICA EM LATIM: POEMAS DE HORÁCIO E MARCIAL

The aim of this paper is to analyse the behavior of enclitic stress in lexical words increasedwith the enclitic -que in Latin. We will present some notions about Latin accent, associated to theidea that the weight of the syllables is fundamental to the enclitic stress. Contrasting this theory tothe collected corpus in Horacios’s and Marcial’s poems, we perceive that, applying the theory ofmetrical phonology, it is possible to analyse the padrons of stress making use of two different patternsof metrical feet: moraic trochee and uneven trochee.

Serbska bibliografija 1996-2000 by Franc Šěn (review)

REVIEWS 7 I I that ProfessorBailey's own researches, particularlyas set forth in his Three Russian Lyric FolkSong Meters(Columbus, OH, 1993), have been concentrated on the folklyricmetres. The kernelof thisbook and the fullestdemonstrationof itsauthor'sresearch method is found in the sixth article (pp. I88-224), which summarizes his monograph of 1993. In it he setsout the groundsfor his view that even in folk lyric verse, more heterogeneous and disorderly than folk narrative verse, metrical feet can be recognized, and that each folk lyric song has a basic metre, deviations from which are not fortuitous irregularities but the consequence of the substitutionof its basic metre by other metreswhich have evolved from it. Three basic metres are postulated: a nine-syllable trochaic tetrameterwith dactylicending;the Russianvariantof the Slavonic 5 + 5 folk lyric metre; and a two-stresstonic line with a disyllabicanacrusis,a dactylic ending and an interval between ictuses of from two to six syllables:with a disyllabic interval between the ictuses this last line is the familiar anapaestic dimeterwith dactylicending. James Bailey is described by Professor Gasparov as the pupil of Roman Jakobson and KirillTaranovskii,and rightly.FromJakobson he takeshislong historical perspective and his readiness to speculate and theorize. To Taranovskii, on the other hand, he owes the method of statistical analysis which Taranovskiiappliedsuccessfullyto the studyof Russianliterarymetres. Bailey's conspicuous merit, to which Professor M. A. Engovatova draws attention in the book's second preface (p. I6), is his reliance on the inductive method of argumentwhich setshim apartfrommany investigatorsof Russian verse and gives his work the credibility and validity which their works sometimeslack. Of course, much remainsto be done, but futureresearchersinto the metres of Russian folksongs can build on the foundationswhich ProfessorBaileyhas laid with confidence. Imperial College London C. L. DRAGE Sen, Franc(ed.). Serbska bibliografija I996-2000. Spisy Serbskehoinstituta,36. Domowina Verlag, Bautzen, 2003. 460 pp. Indexes. ?24.90. BIBLIOGRAPHIESare of courseprimarilyworksof reference.They facilitatethe retrievalof informationfrom the sourcesthey catalogue. But they also help us quantify publishing activity and thus to assess cultural vitality in particular areas.This Sorbianbibliography,for example, the latestin a seriespublished at five-yearlyintervalsby the SorbianInstitutein Bautzen and editedby Franc Sen assistedby a team of experts,is a measureof the vigourof Sorbianculture at the end of the twentiethcentury.It suppliesdetailsof books,articles,reviews and CDs published in Upper and Lower Sorbian on all subjects, as well as those of items in other languages dealing with any aspect of Sorbianlife. The totalnumberof entriesrecordedfortheperiod I996 to 2000 is 7,607, of which the majority(perhapsas many as two thirds)are in one of the two variantsof the Sorbianlanguage. The contents are classifiedunderfourteenheadings:(i) general Sorbian studies, (ii) mass-communication media, (iii) archives, 7I2 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 libraries, museums, and publishing, (iv) the Lusatian landscape, (v) history, (vi)the Domowina, (vii)language, (viii)literature,(ix)ethnography,(x)music, (xi) the theatre, (xii) graphic arts, (xiii) education and (xiv)religion. To some of the lessstraightforwardtitlesa briefannotationis added. Retrievalisfurther facilitated by indexes of authors' names, other personal names, and placenames . The Sorbianlanguage, despiteconstantpressurefromits German-language environment, seems to be still showing fight. Indeed, if publishing is an indicatorofvitality,Sorbianmaybe said,in thisrespectatleast,to be thriving. Publishing,however, is not the only criterionof a language'sprogressand the future of Sorbian is stilluncertain. A key factor in a language's survivalis the range of domains in which it operates and we can learn at least something of this from the Sorbian titles provided here. For example, in view of the susceptibilityof nearlyall languages, not only those endangered,to the loss of domains, and given thatfew domains areasvulnerableasthe naturalsciences, it is significant that Sorbian is the language of several new biology and mathematicstextbooks(pp. 403-04). At the same time, the question naturally arises whether Sorbian is used for any other publications on these subjects. Fromthe fiveyearsunder reviewthereis no evidence that it is. Folklorization,the process whereby an endangered language is gradually squeezed out of high-statusdomains, is proceeding very slowlyin the Sorbian speech-community, but it is encountering resistance, as demonstrated, for example, by the use of Sorbian in the press, films, radio, and television (Section Two) and in discourseson such subjectsas geography (Sections Six and Thirteen), linguistics (Section Seven), literature...

J's rhymes: a longitudinal case study of language play

A longitudinal study of one child aged 2;5 documents an invented language game consisting of suffixal reduplication and onset replacement. Initially, reduplication is partial: the reduplicant enlarges in discrete increments over the five stages of the game until by the last stage reduplication is total. Reduplication is accompanied by a process of onset replacement, in which the reduplicant always begins with /b/. Early in the game, this replacive onset 'dissimilates' to /p/ whenever the reduplicant would independently have begun with /b/. In subsequent stages, other voiced obstruents trigger dissimilation as well. Though similar in many ways to adult language reduplication, it is argued that J's game may more closely resemble adult rhyme (both poetic and word rhyme). Regardless, the structure of the game clearly reveals the child's awareness, in the third year of life, of stress and metrical feet, segmental natural classes, and segments themselves (phonemic awareness).

Quantity or Stress? Sequential Analysis of Latin Prosody

Degrees of linear orderedness of Latin hexameter samples, coded respectively as sequences of long vs. short and stressed vs. unstressed syllables, were compared using the ARIMA method. Formal stochastic process models describing the sequential (metrical and/or rhythmical) text structure were identified and subsequently interpreted in linguistic terms. The average percentage of the original variance explained by the models turned out to be much higher for the stress series than for the series based on quantity coding. Contrary to received opinion, the underlying basis of Latin rhythm was not quantity but dynamic stress placed on the strong parts of consecutive metrical feet.

George Herbert's Holy "Altar," Name and Thing

George Herbert's Holy "Altar," Name and Thing by Kathleen Lynch The first poem we encounter in George Herbert's "The Church," "The Altar," compels and rewards our visual attention with a graphically coherent shape. The verbal properties of "The Altar" amplify the visual register of wholeness. The lines are replete with biblical phraseology. The changes in the typographical shape of the poem are marked by rhyming couplets, with the shaft of the altar composed of four, or precisely half, of the couplets. The typographical adjustments further correspond directly to the manipulation of the number of metrical feet in each line. For its contemporary readers, the very orthography would have carried traces of the divine Word.1 The poem is a carefully wrought sample of what John Hollander calls Herbert's characteristic pursuit of "an authenticity of form."2 As such, it is a self-reflexive instance of the genre of technopaegnia — the epitome of utpicturapoesis — in which the represented object directly addresses its reader. The poem may speak, but the authenticity of its visual structure has been discounted recently. The lack of the kind of critical acclaim accorded "Easter-wings" is not simply a dismissal of the "trick" from which the tradition of technopaegnia takes its name. Rather, readers have been reluctant to engage with the instrumentally mnemonic form of the piece. For while the shape is completely recognizable within the bounds of the genre, it is unrecognizable as a representation of the proper place for sacramental worship in a reformed church. The poem assumes the shape of a classical or stone altar only to redefine or mark the transformation of Christian modes of worship, it is argued.3 Or perhaps the poem is acknowledged to be a typological fulfillment of ancient models, but still denied representational validity.4 In any event, we are reminded the verbal and visual congruence is not what it appears to be. The altar on the page is not broken. How can it then represent the heart, which most assuredly is?5 While the discordance between the opening words of the poem and its visual impact on the page is striking, there are nevertheless a variety of ways in which the altar may be seen to be broken, 42Kathleen Lynch beginning with the interruption of the iambic rhythm at "Made" in the second line. But whether broken or whole, or perhaps both broken and whole, "The Altar" marks the great metaphoric gaps which inescapably divide a word from referents as various as a generic tradition, the object of representation, and the matter of sacramental presence. Not coincidentally, the separate identities of "Name and Thing" were emphasized by Bishop John Williams in the title of his The Holy Table, Name and Thing (1637). The relationship between the two was the core issue of what came to be known as the Altar controversy, which raged in 1636 and 1637 around the vortex of the bishop's by then decade-old ruling that an altar was more properly called a table. In June or July, 1627, Williams was appealed to as Bishop of Lincoln to mediate a disagreement in his diocese between the pastor and parishioners of Grantham about the placement and naming of an altar. Williams retreated to his study and wrote out an opinion overnight as contending parties waited. His decision to call it a table is appropriate for the memorial sacrament celebrated in the Church of England. But the ruling is also born of Williams' vulnerable position at the end of James's reign and his reading of the prevailing political winds in the wake of Richard Montagu's embroilment in controversy over ceremony.6 Court politics determinedthe referential relationship of word and thing for Bishop Williams, keeping him safely within the still dominant party in 1627, but marking him as a target for the ascendant party in 1637. Relations between names and things as they are driven by political winds remain the crux of the availability of "The Altar" to multiple interpretations. An examination of several layers of those relations constitutes the business of this paper. First, I posit that "The Altar" functions as an emblematic title page for "The Church." Therefore, I...

Durational effects of prosodic structure in spontaneous spoken French.

The relation between segmental timing variability and prosodic structure in Montreal French is investigated. Twenty-four minutes of data extracted from recordings of spontaneous conversations using a balanced corpus of eight speakers differentiated according to sex, age, and social class were measured on digital spectrograms. An auditory analysis was used to categorize the basic prosodic structure of the speech corpora. Four levels of prosodic organization were established: syllabic units, metrical feet, accentual groups, and intonational phrases. A linguistic analysis was used to determine the distribution of deleted vowels. This study investigates the role of two types of durational effects in utterances: local effects and global effects. The multiple layering of temporal effects is examined by means of a statistical analysis of syllable durational variability. It is shown how the distribution of vowel deletion follows from the interaction of effects in the temporal implementation of prosodic domains. [Work supported by SSHRCC.]

More on domain‐final lengthening and foot‐level shortening in spoken English

The stressed syllables of spoken English tend to be lengthened when they occur before major syntactic boundaries (domain‐final lengthening) and to be shortened when they are followed by unstressed syllables within the same metrical foot (foot‐level shortening). The nature of the interaction between these two factors has been investigated. A first study [B. Rakerd, W. Sennett, and C. A. Fowler, Phonetica 44, 147–155 (1987)] suggested that their effects are independent. In that study, the syllabic structure of metrical feet spanning word boundaries were manipulated, where those boundaries either coincided with noun‐phrase/verb‐phrase boundaries or did not, and we compared stressed syllable durations. A limitation on the comparison was that the phonetic details of the metrical feet of interest were matched but not held constant across syntactic conditions. In the present study, the procedure to control phonetic details throughout has been refined. With this modification, a significant interaction was observed between domain‐final lengthening and foot‐level shortening; specifically, it was found that the intervals between lengthenings delimited the domains over which substantial shortening could occur. The whole pattern of results will be discussed in light of current theories of foot‐level shortening.

Effects of metrical foot structure on syllable timing.

The durations of syllabic intervals in sentences with different rhythmic structure were examined. Rhythmic structure was defined as the organization of stressed and unstressed syllables into metrical feet — in this case, iambs and anapests. Each sentence contained three metrical feet, and each foot could be either an iamb or an anapest; hence, there were eight sentences of different rhythm types. Six. native speakers of American English each read 24 versions of each of the 8 rhythm types (192 sentences). The utterances were recorded and the durations of each syllable of each foot were measured from sound spectrograms. Statistical analysis indicated that the durations of some syllables were affected by the structure of the foot that contained them. There was also, in most cases, a significant shortening of the stressed syllable of a foot when the following foot was an anapest rather than an iamb. The results were interpreted as indicating that the process by which speech is produced is not strictly concatenative but involves planning which extends to at least two metrical feet at a time.

Domain-final lengthening and foot-level shortening in spoken English.

The literature describes two kinds of durational influence on the syllables of an utterance. They are a lengthening of syllables before many syntactic boundaries ('domain-final lengthening') and a shortening of stressed syllables followed by unstressed syllables ('foot-level shortening'). In the present study we examined the relationship between these two timing phenomena. In particular, we examined the possibility that syntactic boundaries at which lengthening occurs delimit the domains over which foot-level shortening is realized. To test this hypothesis, we varied the syllabic structure of metrical feet spanning word boundaries that either coincided with a noun-phrase (NP)/verb-phrase (VP) boundary or did not. Comparison of stressed syllable durations in these conditions failed to confirm the hypothesis. Instead, unstressed syllables shortened stressed syllables by the same duration across an NP/VP boundary as within a phrase. Our findings suggest that the two effects are independent. The finding that foot-level shortening spans finally-lengthened syntactic boundaries is discussed in relation to theories of the shortening effect.

The Musical Quality of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village

The Musical Quality of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village

The Achehnese Metre sanja' and the Thai KLƆ:N P∈:T

Almost half a century ago I pointed to the similarity between the national Achehnese verse form sanja' and a related Cham verse used in the song of the kadhar (a musician-officiant) at the ceremony of the sacrifice of the buffalo (Cowan, 1933). It will be useful to recall here the main points of that paper.The Achehnese sanja' in its simplest form consists of lines of eight dissyllabic metrical feet or rather four pairs of such feet, whose two middle pairs rhyme with each other, while the final syllable of each line rhymes with that of the following line. Or in other words it is a double-eight-syllable metre with an internal rhyme on the eighth syllable of the first and the fourth syllable of the second half of the verse line, and with a final rhyme at the end of each line. Thus:

The Stratification of Musical Rhythm

There are many books on counterpoint and harmony, but few indeed on the theory of rhythm. Those few approach it through its graphic notation, or in terms of metrical feet, as if it were poetry. Maury Yeston treats rhythm instead in the context of sounded music, with a view to clarifying its ambiguous and little studied, but crucial, relationship with pitch. Although his work is strongly influenced by the methods of the German theorist Heinrich Schenker, it is a strikingly original contribution to musical theory in its own right. Maury Yeston begins by developing analytic procedures for understanding the rhythm of tonal music in terms of pitch levels. He then focuses on certain structures that arise from the interaction of these levels, thereby discovering some fundamental aspects of logical form in the system of musical rhythm. In the course of the inquiry, Mr. Yeston redefines traditional notions of meter, syncopation, and accent. In addition, his study provides a basis for understanding the relationships by which unique rhythmic designs are integrated aesthetically in a cohesive musical composition.

Grundtvigs salmer og deres melodier

Grundtvigs salmer og deres melodier

On the Equivalence of Rhythmical Bars and Metrical Feet

On the Equivalence of Rhythmical Bars and Metrical Feet