Prosodic Analysis Research Articles

The reality of Rukai Glides

Abstract Prosodic details offer valuable insight into the phonology of languages, but prosodically-grounded analysis alone does not reveal the whole picture. Benjamin Macaulay’s prosodic study into Rukai provides valuable insights into the syllable structure of the language, but phonological alternations, particularly the alternation of glides and fricatives, as well as the historical source of glides, suggests that glides still form an important part of Rukai’s phonology. Rather than doing away wtih glides, as Macaulay suggests, this study proposes a compromise position that acknowledges the utility of Macaulay’s prosodic analysis in many cases but keeps the glides [j] and [w] as part of the phonology of Rukai.

The Collaboverse: A Collaborative Data-Sharing and Speech Analysis Platform.

Collaboration in the field of speech-language pathology occurs across a variety of digital devices and can entail the usage of multiple software tools, systems, file formats, and even programming languages. Unfortunately, gaps between the laboratory, clinic, and classroom can emerge in part because of siloing of data and workflows, as well as the digital divide between users. The purpose of this tutorial is to present the Collaboverse, a web-based collaborative system that unifies these domains, and describe the application of this tool to common tasks in speech-language pathology. In addition, we demonstrate its utility in machine learning (ML) applications. This tutorial outlines key concepts in the digital divide, data management, distributed computing, and ML. It introduces the Collaboverse workspace for researchers, clinicians, and educators in speech-language pathology who wish to improve their collaborative network and leverage advanced computation abilities. It also details an ML approach to prosodic analysis. The Collaboverse shows promise in narrowing the digital divide and is capable of generating clinically relevant data, specifically in the area of prosody, whose computational complexity has limited widespread analysis in research and clinic alike. In addition, it includes an augmentative and alternative communication app allowing visual, nontextual communication.

LEXICAL AND POST-LEXICAL PROSODIC DOCUMENTATION OF EMBALOH LANGUAGE

This research investigated the prosody of the Embaloh language, which has yet to be widely explored, to document and preserve the language. The method used is data collection of spontaneous and non-spontaneous speeches from 12 native speakers. Prosodic analysis was then carried out based on visualising and observing speech sound waves using the autosegmental-metrical theory (AM) framework. The results show that prominence tends to be on the right edge at both lexical and post-lexical prosodic levels. The findings show that the Embaloh language is outside the mainstream of Austronesian languages, which places word stress at the penultimate syllable. At the post-lexical level in interrogative intonation, phrases with a question word are marked by the pitch accent located at the target question word in the nuclear contour of the phrase. The pitch accent follows the position of the question word in the intonation phrase, forward or backward, with one of the following tones: H* (high), LH* (low-high), or LHL* (low-high-low). The intonation of the question is indicated by the H(high) tone at the end of the phrase. The H (high) tone also acts as a boundary tone represented by H*% (high).

Prosodic and functional analysis of the rising tone interrogation in three types of corpora on the Spanish spoken in Cuba

Prosodic and functional analysis of the rising tone interrogation in three types of corpora on the Spanish spoken in Cuba

The Role of Prosodic Features in Conversational Interaction : Hard Talk a Case Study

This study aims to look into the relationships between prosodic features from phonological perspective and interactional relationships and sequence organization from conversation analysis (CA) view. There are specific prosodic cues that speakers employ to signal to one another when it is their turn to talk in any speech situation. These cues serve as signs to let other people know when it is the speaker's turn to talk. It is important to demonstrate that some prosodic patterns indicate the end or continuation of a turn. Prosodic orientation, such as intonation and tone patterns, are hypothesized to reveal information about participants' matching and non-matching of a prior turn. The consistent use of the same pitch height indicates that there is agreement among the participants on a specific situation. PRAAT, a computer program is used for doing acoustic analysis to conduct the prosodic analysis following Ladefoged’s model. It is supposed that when the speaker makes a low pitch, he is no more interested in the topic raised or no more excited, but when there is a high pitch that means there is more to be added and some significant issues can be shown However, prosodic orientation is obviously used in political interviews in a manner similar to that of ordinary speech. As well as Political interviews commonly employ pauses, interrupted speech, and reasoning, some of which show a particular orientation to the preceding turns.

Prosodic Analysis of Humor in Stand-up Comedy

The present study investigated the prosodic features employed by Trevor Noah to create humor in his stand-up comedy. The study used quantitative paradigms to frame the verbal narrative. The research employed, Prosodic Markers of Saliency in Humorous Narratives (Pickering et al., 2009) as theoretical framework for prosodic features. Firstly, the data was anatomized via systematic prosodic and cognitive incongruities between the jokes’ setup and the punch lines. Secondly, for each humorous narrative, a series of measurements including pitch, volume, and pause, as identified by Praat (6.1), were used as a framework to dig out the implicit and explicit factors that caused humor in stand-up acts. The data analysis showed that the orator employed a substantial pause before delivering his punch lines which created humor. The study concluded that prosody played a vital role in creating humor, which falls within the domain of linguistics. The study was significant as it contributed to research concerning narrative forms of jokes based on instrumental prosodic analysis. Further, the research might be conducted to analyze other paralinguistic markers of humor, such as the use of laughter and smile during the delivery of jokes in different Pakistani sitcoms and stand-up comedy, to enlarge the studies on humor’s scope. 

The Role of Prosodic Features in Conversational Interaction : Hard Talk a Case Study

This study aims to look into the relationships between prosodic features from phonological perspective and interactional relationships and sequence organization from conversation analysis (CA) view. There are specific prosodic cues that speakers employ to signal to one another when it is their turn to talk in any speech situation. These cues serve as signs to let other people know when it is the speaker's turn to talk. It is important to demonstrate that some prosodic patterns indicate the end or continuation of a turn. Prosodic orientation, such as intonation and tone patterns, are hypothesized to reveal information about participants' matching and non-matching of a prior turn. The consistent use of the same pitch height indicates that there is agreement among the participants on a specific situation. PRAAT, a computer program is used for doing acoustic analysis to conduct the prosodic analysis following Ladefoged’s model. It is supposed that when the speaker makes a low pitch, he is no more interested in the topic raised or no more excited, but when there is a high pitch that means there is more to be added and some significant issues can be shown However, prosodic orientation is obviously used in political interviews in a manner similar to that of ordinary speech. As well as Political interviews commonly employ pauses, interrupted speech, and reasoning, some of which show a particular orientation to the preceding turns

A Prosodic Account of Negation in Jordanian Arabic

This study investigates the relationship between negation variation in Jordanian Arabic and prosody. Inspired by a variationist study (Sallakh 2021) which found that transitivity and tense had major effects on the choice of negation variants in Jordanian Arabic, we provide phonological and acoustic analyses of tokens involving transitive and intransitive verbs. Our results show that intransitive verbs are more likely to occur in discontinuous negation ma:- -ʃ because the verb is not prosodically parsed with a complement. On the other hand, transitive verbs tend to take pre-verbal ma: since the verb is prosodically parsed with its complement hence disfavoring the addition of another syllable to the MiP of the verb and its complement. Similarly, our phonological and prosodic analyses show that tense also affects negation variant choice as discontinuous negation is more frequent in past tense because it does not have any tense or agreement proclitics or enclitics. Present tense disfavors discontinuous negation because of the proclitics and enclitics it is attached to. Finally, to support the prosodic analysis, we conducted an acoustic analysis that investigated negator duration, pitch, intensity inter alia.

Exploring Prosodic Pragmatics at Affective Level

This research work presents a conceptual framework to explore the interplay between intonation and emotional expressions that conveys pragmatic meaning of linguistic utterances. Theory of Affective Pragmatics (TAP), an innovative theory that functions parallel to speech act theory, is applied to introduce a conceptual framework to study prosodic pragmatics at a profound level. The affective component of attitude is introduced in the framework using Ostrom’s ABC model to comprehend affective pragmatics. For further study on this framework, quantitative research design is desirable to analyze data and the data is suggested to be obtained through emotional recordings from emotional prosody speech and transcripts (EPST). Praat as an apt tool recommended for the prosodic analysis of the data. This framework explains how intonation patterns signal unabridged emotions and feelings to understand speaker’s implied meaning. It elaborates the emotional expressions that convey pragmatic meaning to intellectualize affective pragmatics. It highlights some other facets that render affective pragmatics a new-fangled field of research. It has also been envisioned to broaden the scope of prosodic pragmatics as a distinctive research domain in linguistics. The framework is an application of TAP and provides grounds to researchers to understand prosodic pragmatics at a deeper level and to perform future researches in more effective ways. The research is unique in its essence as it offers a conceptual framework to explore affective component of attitude in prosodic pragmatics that has not yet been explored.

Prosodic perceptive thresholds in Spanish: intensity and duration

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.

Variation in the prosody of illocutionary adverbs

AbstractIllocutionary adverbs such asfrankly,honestly, andseriouslyhave been commonly analysed as interpersonal (non-truth-conditional) modifiers that are characterised by syntactic and prosodic detachment from the ‘host’ they are associated with. However, recent accounts (e.g.Keizer 2018a) have shown that the formal (syntactic and prosodic) properties of such adverbs do not necessarily follow directly from the semantic non-truth-conditionality towards the main proposition. With respect to the prosodic realisation, such interpersonal adverbs can either be integrated into the respective utterance or detached from it (i.e.form a separate Intonational Phrase [IP]). The prosodic realisation is determined by the specific discourse-pragmatic features of such interpersonal adverbs, namely whether they are intended as separate (Subsidiary) Discourse Acts or whether they are part of a single Discourse Act at the Interpersonal Level (Keizer 2018a, 2018b, 2019, 2020). The aim of this article is to investigate these predictions by looking into the prosodic features of illocutionary adverb on the one hand and their discourse-pragmatic features on the other. It will be argued, based on the prosodic analysis of a set of spoken corpus data, that (i) the formation of separate IP is indeed triggered by the formation of Subsidiary Discourse Act, (ii) the formal properties (position and intonational pattern) are determined by the specific rhetorical function assigned to the respective Discourse Act, and (iii) the prosodic integration correlates with the adverbs being integral part of a single Discourse Act at the Interpersonal Level.

Semantik Prosodi Nomina Indonesia dalam Korpus Wacana Berita Arab Internasional Oman 2013

<p class="BodyA"><strong>The prosodic semantic analysis in this research focuses on the aura of the lexical and contextual meaning of words that collocate with the noun 'Indonesia', in the international news corpus of Omani Arabic "KALIMAT a Multipurpose Arabic Corpus, 2013". Using the AntConc corpus, two kinds of "Indonesian" nouns were found, "Indonesia" in the indefinite form /indu:ni: niyyah/ and in the definitive form /al-indu:ni: niyyah/. However, this study focuses on the noun "Indonesia" in the definitive form /al-indu:ni: niyyah/. The theory that is used in this study is the prosodic semantic theory proposed by Louw (1993), which states that the coloring or aura of the meaning of a form, is imbued with its collocations. The research design is descriptive qualitative and quantitative which is used to maximize the semantic analysis of the prosody of the research object. Based on the results of corpus data processing, it was found that 8 (eight) nouns collocated with 'Indonesian' nouns, namely /ba: li:/, /jazz: rah/, /asy-syurthah/, /al-Jindra:l/, /al -wathaniyyah/, /al-Musalaha/, /al-qua:t/, and /al- Hukumah/. From the results of the analysis, the authors found that the collocation of the noun 'Indonesia' is not only a single noun, it is also a phrase that gives a neutral and negative aura to the noun 'Indonesia'.</strong></p><p class="BodyA"><strong><em>Keywords</em></strong><strong> - </strong><em>Prosody Semantics, Arabic Corpus, Collocation, Indonesia</em></p>

Competing prosodic influences on VOT length in Hawaiian

Previous research on voice onset time shows that VOT in unaspirated stops is at best only weakly affected by prosodic strengthening (Hodgson, 2021; Simonet et al., 2014). VOT duration is analyzed in Hawaiian, which has only /p k/, in conjunction with a prosodic analysis, to determine its stop type, and investigate whether prosodic boundaries condition VOT length. Data comprise speech from seven speakers interviewed on the radio program Ka Leo Hawai‘i in the 1970–80s (Kettig, 2021). Using the computational prosodic grammar in Parker Jones (2010), stops were coded for whether they occurred in lexical word-initial/medial position, in a stressed/unstressed syllable, and in prosodic word-initial/medial position. The results indicate that the average duration of /p/ is 24ms and /k/ is 41ms, the latter being on the higher end of unaspirated stop ranges (Cho and Ladefoged, 1999). VOT is significantly longer before stressed word-medial syllables, but shorter before stressed word-initial syllables. For word-medial stressed syllables, VOT is also significantly longer when the syllable is in prosodic-word initial position. VOT length may have separate functions in Hawaiian unaspirated stops: strengthen a lexical word boundary especially before an unstressed syllable via shortening, but lengthen word-medially to demarcate a prosodic word boundary.

Rhetoric and prosody of judicial discourse in mass media

We inevitably deal with the spread of the legal practice to the masses to inform the population about current criminal cases and their court decisions. There are few works dedicated to the studies of the rhetoric and prosody of the judicial discourse both in domestic and international science space. This article is devoted to the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. It is known that the interest in the study of the language prosody has begun to manifest with the advent of new computer programs that allow analyzing the prosody, especially, the temporal variables, such as speed, duration, intonation, and pause of speech. Accordingly, this article aims to work on the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. Taking into account the complexity of the polyfunctionality of prosody as a subject of research, the study of the prosodic function of judicial discourse in mass media in the context of rhetoric allows understanding the meaning of prosodic processes in speech and determining the intention of news. The study was based on the news coverings of the criminal case of Ezra McCandles, which was considered in the United States from 2018 to 2020. The article used research methods such as rhetorical discourse analysis, as well as acoustic analysis using the Praat computer program. The prosodic analysis of judicial discourse in the context of rhetoric revealed the prosodic narrative techniques such as alternating intensity, rise, and fall of the tone, speech pauses, which aimed to impact the perception of the case by the listeners.

Rhetoric and prosody of judicial discourse in mass media

We inevitably deal with the spread of the legal practice to the masses to inform the population about current criminal cases and their court decisions. There are few works dedicated to the studies of the rhetoric and prosody of the judicial discourse both in domestic and international science space. This article is devoted to the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. It is known that the interest in the study of the language prosody has begun to manifest with the advent of new computer programs that allow analyzing the prosody, especially, the temporal variables, such as speed, duration, intonation, and pause of speech. Accordingly, this article aims to work on the study of the rhetorical function of prosody in judicial discourse. Taking into account the complexity of the polyfunctionality of prosody as a subject of research, the study of the prosodic function of judicial discourse in mass media in the context of rhetoric allows understanding the meaning of prosodic processes in speech and determining the intention of news. The study was based on the news coverings of the criminal case of Ezra McCandles, which was considered in the United States from 2018 to 2020. The article used research methods such as rhetorical discourse analysis, as well as acoustic analysis using the Praat computer program. The prosodic analysis of judicial discourse in the context of rhetoric revealed the prosodic narrative techniques such as alternating intensity, rise, and fall of the tone, speech pauses, which aimed to impact the perception of the case by the listeners.

Gendering prosody in communication

Abstract The study focuses on the prosody of Standard Chinese in communication in correlation with gender of speakers. In the field of Standard Chinese prosody is built on the research work done by Oldřich Švarný, who established the system of prosodic transcription and analysis. The connection with the gender of the speakers is completely new and unique. This article uses results of the analysis of SC language corpus transcribed by prosodic transcription and endeavour to find a connection between obtained results and gendered influences on prosodic (suprasegmental) level of language. Basic prosodic phenomena observed here are prosodic word syllable number, speech rate, syllable accentual prominence and the frequency of rhythmic sequence types. The results clearly show there is a connection between gender of the speaker and the prosodic realization of his/her speech.

Prosody in recognizing dialogue-specific functions of speech acts. Evidence from Polish

In this paper we evaluate the role of prosodic information in inferring dialogue-specific functions of speech acts. We report the results of an empirical study in which participants are exposed to recordings of certain utterances and, next, asked to recognize discursive contexts from which the heard utterances may come. The recorded utterances are quotations: staged utterances produced by speakers asked to read aloud dialogues specially constructed for the study. We analyse prosodic cues produced by recorded speakers and argue that they play a key role in depicting demonstrated target utterance. We assume that participants’ decisions manifest their implicit understanding of dialogue-specific functions of target utterances. The empirical part of our study shows that the efficiency rate of the prosodic cues produced by recorded speakers is 76%. We use the results of our prosodic analysis of recorded utterances to account for some cases of incorrect interpretations reported in the study.

Automatic categorization of prosodic contours in Bardi

This study presents preliminary results of an automated prosodic clustering analysis of Bardi, a Nyulnyulan language from Northern Australia, using methods from Kaland (2021). Previous work on Bardi prosody identified several functions of boundary tones and two main phrase types, but stressed that findings were preliminary. Here we extend that work and show evidence for several additional phrase types, as well as confirming the overall accuracy of automated clustering. This work adds to the prosodic typology of Australian languages (cf. Fletcher et al. 2002) and provides further evidence for the functions of intonation beyond demarcation in these languages. When coupled with evaluation by a knowledgeable researcher, this automated approach can greatly expedite prosodic analysis on a large scale and expand our typology of prosodic systems.

Paraguayan Guaraní and the typology of free affix order

Cross-linguistically, affix order is commonly determined by semantic scope (Rice 2006) or a morphological template. Less frequently, affix order is free, which means that suffixes can be reordered without a concomitant change in scope. To address the question of what gives rise to and constrains free affix order (FAO), I present a case study of Paraguayan Guaraní (or PG, Tupí-Guaraní, Paraguay, ISO 639-3: gug). I argue that FAO in PG should be analyzed as driven by prosodic factors. The prosodic analysis has previously been proposed only for Chintang (Bickel et al. 2007). Two major analyses of FAO see the phenomenon as driven by either morphology (e.g. Ryan 2010) or prosody (Bickel et al. 2007). The morphological analysis proposes that FAO is a consequence of free variation within the morphological template. The prosodic analysis models FAO with prosodic subcategorization for phonologically prominent positions. I argue that the two analyses make different predictions as to the preconditions for and the extent of FAO. I show that both the morphological and the prosodic profile of FAO are attested. I propose that FAO in PG is an instance of the latter. Thus, I demonstrate that FAO is not a unified phenomenon, but rather should be typologized as driven by either morphological or prosodic factors.

Tonal peaks in the spontaneous speech of vantage level Hungarian learners of Spanish

Abstract This paper reports on a two-part research project, conducted in order to see how Hungarian learners with at least vantage level of Spanish realize melodic peaks in their Spanish utterances. First, we are focusing on the tonal and distributional characteristics of melodic peaks, taking into consideration the proportion of the rise in f0 with respect to the previous syllable and examining if the affected syllable is lexically stressed. Second, the range of the tonal rise until the first peak of the utterance is analyzed. The method applied in both cases is Cantero Serena’s Prosodic Analysis of Speech (2019), which represents intonation by objectively comparable standardized melodic curves. The differences found in the speech of Hungarian learners as compared to native Spanish speakers have not proved to be significant in the aspects analyzed here. The main finding of the research is that native Spanish speakers tend to realize the first peak of their declarative sentences as the highest f0 point of the utterance, whereas this is less typical in the oral production of Hungarian learners of Spanish.