Prosodic Level Research Articles

Localization and pauses duration in Russian iambic tetrameter in the poetry of A. S. Pushkin

This article is a continuation of a study dedicated to the role of pauses in the prosodic structure of the Russian iambic tetrameter. New data on the localization and duration of the pauses in Alexander Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” as voiced by three speakers, corroborate previously identified patterns in the organization of poetic lines at the prosodic level. Pauses of varying durations, occurring with different frequencies at various junctures, emphasize the depth of the varying degree of internal division within a line. The method of multidimensional classification revealed five groups of pause durations, ranging from ultra-short to super-long. It was found that within a line, ultra-short and short pauses predominate, while longer pauses tend to occur more towards the middle and less towards the beginning. The absence or brevity of pauses near the end of a line highlights a more prolonged inter-line pause. Individual pause strategies manifest in the observance or omission of inter-line pauses, their duration, the frequency of prosodic breaks within a line, and the frequency of using pauses of a particular duration group. High correlation coefficients indicate a consistent use of pauses among the three speakers.

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).

Speech Emotion Recognition Using a Multi-Time-Scale Approach to Feature Aggregation and an Ensemble of SVM Classifiers

Due to its relevant real-life applications, the recognition of emotions from speech signals constitutes a popular research topic. In the traditional methods applied for speech emotion recognition, audio features are typically aggregated using a fixed-duration time window, potentially discarding information conveyed by speech at various signal durations. By contrast, in the proposed method, audio features are aggregated simultaneously using time windows of different lengths (a multi-time-scale approach), hence, potentially better utilizing information carried at phonemic, syllabic, and prosodic levels compared to the traditional approach. A genetic algorithm is employed to optimize the feature extraction procedure. The features aggregated at different time windows are subsequently classified by an ensemble of support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. To enhance the generalization property of the method, a data augmentation technique based on pitch shifting and time stretching is applied. According to the obtained results, the developed method outperforms the traditional one for the selected datasets, demonstrating the benefits of using a multi-time-scale approach to feature aggregation.

Phrase boundaries lacking word prosody: An articulatory investigation of Seoul Korean.

This electromagnetic articulography study explores the kinematic profile of Intonational Phrase boundaries in Seoul Korean. Recent findings suggest that the scope of phrase-final lengthening is conditioned by word- and/or phrase-level prominence. However, evidence comes mainly from head-prominence languages, which conflate positions of word prosody with positions of phrasal prominence. Here, we examine phrase-final lengthening in Seoul Korean, an edge-prominence language with no word prosody, with respect to focus location as an index of phrase-level prominence and Accentual Phrase (AP) length as an index of word demarcation. Results show that phrase-final lengthening extends over the phrase-final syllable. The effect is greater the further away that focus occurs. It also interacts with the domains of AP and prosodic word: lengthening is greater in smaller APs, whereas shortening is observed in the initial gesture of the phrase-final word. Additional analyses of kinematic displacement and peak velocity revealed that Korean phrase-final gestures bear the kinematic profile of IP boundaries concurrently to what is typically considered prominence marking. Based on these results, a gestural coordination account is proposed, in which boundary-related events interact systematically with phrase-level prominence as well as lower prosodic levels, and how this proposal relates to the findings in head-prominence languages is discussed.

Formation of the semiotic component of speech in senior preschool children with logopathology

The scientific publication presents a theoretical and experimental-comparative analysis of the formation of the semiotic component of speech in senior preschool children with speech disorders. The purpose of the study is to investigate the dynamics of the development of the semiotic component of speech in senior preschool children with speech pathology after correctional educational and developmental intervention. The methods of the study are: theoretical − analysis of scientific sources to solve the problematic issue; empirical − use of diagnostic tools (tasks − educational, game, research, during which children with speech disorders study phonemic, lexical, grammatical and prosodic levels of speech; analysis; comparison), formative (game, verbal, exercises, etc.) and variable statistical (quantitative and qualitative) ones. Results of the study. Corrective educational and developmental work on the formation of the semiotic component of speech in senior preschool children with speech pathology took place at the propedeutic-foundational (preparing the child for the acquisition of basic speech and language knowledge and skills), variably sequential (providing a combination of visual and speech actions), speech-active (involving the child in the speech environment) stages. Additionally, the methods and techniques of correctional educational and developmental work are substantiated. The compared materials of the study of the ascertaining and formative experiments testified to the dynamics of the development of the semiotic component of speech in children with logopathology. The children studied improved their phonemic (perception, analysis and representation), lexical (expressive and impressive speech), grammatical (composing stories, agreeing verbs with the subject in number, declining nouns and adjectives, modifying verbs by person and number, use diminutives and pet forms of nouns in all genders and cases) and prosodic (normative voice power, speech rate, expressive intonation and clear diction) levels of speech

DIFFERENTIATION OF ONE-WAY SPEECH ACTS OF REQUEST AND ENTREATY AT THE PROSODIC LEVEL

Statement of the problem. This article is aimed at identifying the distinctive features of such one-way speech acts related to the directive as request and entreaty at the tonal, dynamic and temporal levels based on the modern German language. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that each speech situation has its own prosodic form, which, consequently, leads to the need to identify more detailed distinguishing features of each speech act. So, within the framework of the directive, one can single out illocutions that are similar in the induced effect, but differ in the nature of the implementation of the action. Results. As a result of an experimental and phonetic research, it was found that, despite all the identified distinctive features, the greatest differentiation between a request and an entreaty is observed at the level of intensity. However, there is a tendency to distinguish the two illocutionaries at the melodic level as well. The most differentiated part of the delimitation of the speech flow is a post-beat, namely the completion of the phonation. This section captures the differences at all prosodic levels. At the level of duration, the differentiation between the entreaty and request is not statistically confirmed. Conclusion. Entreaty, being a less calm statement than request, reflects its emotional component in the prosodic picture. This is expressed in the allocation of key semantic syllables by loudness, frequent and sharp acceleration and deceleration of speech throughout the entire utterance. However, the same illocutionary of the entreaty is dynamically expressed less than the request. All identified distinctive characteristics of the two illocutives may indicate different communication strategies that interactants use in the course of communication in order to achieve the maximum perlocutionary effect, which presumably will minimize or completely eliminate the likelihood of misunderstanding between interactants.

Realisation, elision and intrusion of /h/ in French learners of English

As the phonological systems of English and French diverge both at the segmental level and at the prosodic level, French learners encounter difficulties with English pronunciation. One example is the glottal fricative /h/ since it is absent from the French phonemic inventory–with the exception of the onomatopoeia “haha” to express laughter. Following studies by Exare (2017) and Kamiyama et al. (2011), this paper aims to provide further empirical evidence of the realisation, elision, and intrusion of /h/ in French speakers’ English productions. The learners were university students who did not major in English. The participants were given three tasks, i.e., word reading, sentence reading, and spontaneous speech. Auditory analyses were then carried out by the researcher. Results show four speaker-profiles: (1) /h/ is absent altogether; (2) /h/ is accurately realised; (3) /h/ is accurately realised in addition to regular occurrences of intrusive /h/; (4) only intrusive /h/ occurs. Although the speaking task has an influence on intra-speaker variability, intra-speaker consistency has been observed, with participants belonging to one of the above learner-profiles. Also of interest were the differences between men and women. These results suggest that different teaching strategies should be established to better suit the needs of the different profiles.

Lexical tonal effects in code-switching: A comparative study of Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese switching with English

Aims and objectives: Previous research has revealed much about the syntactic and social variables conditioning code-switching (i.e., the alternation between two or more languages in a discourse or utterance); however, little is known about the phonological effects. Our work explores this area by asking two main questions: (1) Does lexical tone affect code-switching between a tonal language and a non-tonal language? and (2) Is this effect (or lack thereof) observable cross-linguistically? Methodology: We examine natural code-switching production between Cantonese and English, Mandarin and English, and Vietnamese and English. We use a semi-automatic natural-language processing method to process and extract relevant variables, including tonal categories at switch points. Data and analysis: Data include transcribed natural speech from three bilingual corpora: the HLVC corpus (Cantonese/English, 25 speakers), the SEAME corpus (Mandarin/English, 20 speakers), and the CanVEC corpus (Vietnamese/English, 45 speakers). We use logistic mixed-effects models to examine tonal effects, taking into account other factors such as frequency and grammatical category. Findings/conclusion: We found a robust tonal effect in Cantonese/English, a less robust effect in Mandarin/English, and no effect in Vietnamese/English. This indicates there is a tonal effect in code-switching between a tonal and a non-tonal language, but this effect is language-dependent. We also found a specific T3 ‘step-up’ pattern at Cantonese-English switch points and offered some possible phonological explanations. Originality: This is the first study that systematically investigates tonal effects in code-switching across different language pairs, using comparable data and methods. Our finding of a Cantonese-English T3 ‘step-up’ pattern is also a novel discovery that hitherto has not been documented. Significance/implications: Theoretically, our findings support Clyne’s ‘facilitation theory’ in code-switching at a prosodic level. Empirically, we nevertheless emphasised the complexity of different prosodic features and social variables in play, thereby rejecting the idea of ‘predicting’ code-switching solely based on linguistic factors.

Gesture-speech coupling in persons with aphasia: A kinematic-acoustic analysis.

Aphasia is a profound language pathology hampering speech production and/or comprehension. People With Aphasia (PWA) use more manual gestures than Non-Brain Injured (NBI) individuals. This intuitively invokes the idea that gesture is compensatory in some way, but there is variable evidence of a gesture-boosting effect on speech processes. The status quo in gesture research with PWA is an emphasis on categorical analysis of gesture types, focusing on how often they are recruited, and whether more or less gesturing aids communication or speaking. However, there are increasingly louder calls for the investigation of gesture and speech as continuous entangled modes of expression. In NBI adults, expressive moments of gesture and speech are synchronized on the prosodic level. It has been neglected how this multimodal prosody is instantiated in PWA. In the current study, we perform the first acoustic-kinematic gesture-speech analysis in Persons With Aphasia (i.e., Wernicke's, Broca's, Anomic) relative to age-matched controls, where we apply several multimodal signal analysis methods. Specifically, we related the speech peaks (smoothed amplitude envelope change) with that of the nearest peaks in the gesture acceleration profile. We obtained that the magnitude of gesture versus speech peaks are positively related across the groups, though more variably for PWA, and such coupling was related to less severe Aphasia-related symptoms. No differences were found between controls and PWA in terms of temporal ordering of speech envelope versus acceleration peaks. Finally, we show that both gesture and speech have slower quasi-rhythmic structure, indicating that next to speech, gesture is slowed down too. The current results indicate that there is a basic gesture-speech coupling mechanism that is not fully reliant on core linguistic competences, as it is found relatively intact in PWA. This resonates with a recent biomechanical theory of gesture, which renders gesture-vocal coupling as fundamental and a priori to the (evolutionary) development of core linguistic competences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Prosodic and Segmental Aspects of Pronunciation Training and Their Effects on L2

Some studies on training effects of pronunciation instruction have claimed that the training of prosodic features has effects at the segmental level and that the training of segmental features has effects at the prosodic level, with greater effects reported when prosody is the main focus of training. This paper revisits this claim by looking at the effects of pronunciation training on Italian learners of German. In a pre-post-test design, we investigate acoustic changes after training in learners’ productions of two features regarded as prosodic and two features regarded as segmental. The prosodic features were the pitch excursion of final rises in yes–no questions and the reduction in schwa epenthesis in word-final closed syllables. The segmental features were final devoicing and voice onset time (VOT) in plosives. We discuss the results for three groups (with segmental training, with prosody training, and with no pronunciation training). Our results indicate that there are positive effects of prosody-oriented training on the production of segments, especially when training focuses on syllable structure and prosodic prominence (stress and accent). They also indicate that teaching segmental and prosodic aspects of pronunciation together is beneficial.

LINGUO-PROSODIC MEANS OF POLITENESS/ IMPOLITENESS REALIZATION IN ENGLISH INFORMAL CONFLICT DIALOGICAL DISCOURSE

The immediate aim of the article is to define linguo-prosodic means of politeness/impoliteness realization in English informal conflict dialogiсal discourse. The article examines the functioning of prosody as a means of implementing politeness/ impoliteness in conflict discourse depending on the degree of its formality, which highlights the general relevance of the topic. The analysed informal conflict dialogical units were subdivided into polite and impolite. Thus, in this work we investigate 2 types of informal conflict dialogical units: polite informal and impolite informal. The basic type of informal conflict situations, touching collucutors’ personal life, their family relations, is a family conflict, developing in three major directions: parents — children; husband — wife; brother/sister — brother/sister. Conflicts between family members can take different scenarios depending on inner family relations of conflicting sides. Most frequently conflicts occur between children and parents and between married couples. The main purpose of parents is to make their children change direction of their actions according to their (parents’) ideas and interests. Parents do their best to save asymmetrical correlation of their role and their children’s role within a family, as such placing of roles gives them advantage in realization of their aims. Parents make ample use of orders, prohibitions, threats, reproaches, etc. Children’s communicative strategy in such conflict situations is conditioned by a strong desire to make their family role as important as their parents’ one. The most frequent conflict reasons within a family is violation of both family and social obligations by one or both partners. The most frequent reason of conflict in siblings’ relations is their struggle for personal interests or space; envy; one of the conflict-creating factors is their desire to prove their social importance to each other. On the whole, in impolite informal conflict intercourse the conduct of spouses depends a great deal on their social status and education. Low social status married couples in most cases do not control their emotions, do not think about the conflict consequences, do not try to keep a wife (husband) away from undesirable stresses. In some occasions high social status married couples were characteristic of arrogance, snobbery, scorn, that resulted in aggressive verbal conduct during a conflict. Impolite informal conflict cooperation between brothers and sisters is also characteristic of high emotionality degree. Collocutors do not hide their negative feelings and emotions, are not afraid to talk unpleasant, rough and abusive things. At prosodic level it is expressed by high volume and quick speech tempo, as communication participants speak very quickly; although their speech slows down on semantically and emphatically important areas of the dialogue, i. e. semantically and emphatically important remarks are foregrounded via their prolonging. The conducted research enabled the followings conclusions: English informal conflict dialogiсal discourse is characteristic of using verbal aggression techniques; foul, sometimes even taboo, language; simple syntactic constructions; ellipsis; direct imperative constructions. At prosodic level distinctive features of informal conflict dialogues can be named rapid tempo (often with a tendency to normal), high volume, wide voice range, use of the broken descending scale and the high-falling nuclear tone. The collocutor’s conduct in conflict communication depends a great deal on their social status, education and politeness.

An information structure view on Romance yes-no question contours

The paper presents an information structure (IS) analysis of YNQ contours of nine Romance languages from a psycholinguistic perspective. The contours are presented in Frota & Prieto (2015). The psychological IS model defines four IS categories for describing IS partitions of information units and rules for the nuclear stress identification. Information units are contrast units (CUs) generated by the speech production mechanism at the cortex level in order to pair words/word groups within speech data flow. The contrast is an IS functional one at the information packaging level and is conveyed at the prosodic level by contrasted tonal features of IS functional elements. CU_predicate-CU_argument and CU_theme-CU_rheme are the two structural dimensions of IS partitions. The model formulates two IS-based nuclear stress rules that we have used in Romance YNQ contour analysis in order to identify nucleus (focus) of IS partitions that is an important factor to discriminate between different contour types: information seeking YNQ, confirmation seeking YNQ, or echo YNQ within the nine Romance languages.

Mandarin lexical tone duration: Impact of speech style, word length, syllable position and prosodic position

This study aims to increase our knowledge of Mandarin lexical tone duration in continuous Mandarin speech. Related variation factors such as the number of syllable(s) in word, the position of syllable in word, its prosodic position and speech style were also explored. Large corpora of casual and journalistic speech (total ∼1000 hours) were used. More than 90% of the words (tokens) used in spoken Mandarin are monosyllabic and disyllabic words. In casual speech, 67% of the wordtokens are monosyllabic and 30% of the word-tokens are disyllabic. In journalistic speech, however, disyllabic words (49%) are more frequently used than monosyllabic words (45%). Tone 4 is the most frequently used tone among the four lexical tones in both casual (34%) and journalistic (36%) speech. Tone 1, Tone 2 and Tone 3 have similar occurrence frequencies in causal speech. Tone 3 appears to be the least frequently used tone in journalistic speech. With regard to tone duration, the results show that Tone 2 tends to have the shortest duration in causal speech and Tone 3 appears to have the longest duration in journalistic speech. Nonetheless, the studied variation factors (number of syllable(s) in word, position of syllable in word and prosodic position) are all found to influence the duration of Mandarin lexical tones, for both causal speech and journalistic speech. Tone durations in monosyllabic words appear to be closer to those of word-final syllables than to other syllable positions in multi-syllabic words. In terms of prosodic position, tone duration tends to increase with higher prosodic level in both casual and journalistic speech. Regardless of tone nature and speech style, the longest tone duration is in phrase-final position, followed by word-final and then word-medial position. Regional variety for tone duration is explored using casual speech productions from speakers of five major cities of North and South-East China, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Wuxi, Suzhou and Nanjing.

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.

Theoretical achievements of phonetics in the 21st century: Phonetics of voice quality

Twenty years after the publication of a special issue in this journal on non-modal phonation (JPhon 2001: 49(4)), the phonetic study of voice quality has shown impressive progress. Here I focus on what we have learnt over these years about the linguistic sources of voice quality modulation. I stress how voice quality has a role to play in all of speech: among its many functions, the voice is involved in the articulation of all sounds, and voice quality is worth investigating as much for “modal” consonants and vowels as for contrastive phonation type. The voice also encodes structure at many prosodic levels: sub-lexical, lexical, and post-lexical. I further highlight some of the important technological developments and refinement of various voice quality models that have led to progress in the phonetic study of voice quality. Reviewing all of the above, one can only conclude that human voice has a central role to play in the phonetician’s pursuit towards understanding spoken language.

Prominence marking in an edge-prominent language - the case of Drehu

This study investigates prosodic correlates of phrasing in Drehu, an Oceanic language from New Caledonia. The analysis is concerned with the demarcation of prosodic levels in the language, namely the Accentual Phrase and the Intonation Phrase. First impressionistic descriptions of Drehu state there is fixed word initial stress, however recent experimental evidence does not support this claim. Instead, it has been suggested that Drehu could be an edge-marking language which relies on right boundary marking. To determine whether the patterns recorded in the literature are borne out, the phonological and phonetic realisation of post-lexical word level prosody is investigated. An experiment was conducted to examine the extent to which fundamental frequency (F0) and duration contribute to boundary marking in Drehu. The results show that F0 cues mark the right boundary of two prosodic levels, the AP and IP, and that the strength of the boundary is related to its level in the prosodic hierarchy. Preboundary lengthening also cues IP boundaries but not AP boundaries.

Computational modelling of segmental and prosodic levels of analysis for capturing variation across Arabic dialects

Dialect variation spans different linguistic levels of analysis. Two examples include the typical phonetic realisations produced and the typical range of intonational choices made by individuals belonging to a given dialect group. Taking the modeling principles of a specific automatic accent recognition system, the work here characterises and observes the variation that exists within these two levels of analysis among eight Arabic dialects. Using a method that has previously shown promising performance on English accent varieties, we first model the segmental level of analysis from recordings of Arabic speakers to capture the variation in the phonetic realisations of the vowels and consonants. In doing so, we show how powerful this model can be in distinguishing between Arabic dialects. This paper then shows how this modeling approach can be adapted to instead characterise prosodic variation among these same dialects from the same speech recordings. This allows us to inspect the relative power of the segmental and prosodic levels of analysis in separating the Arabic dialects. This work opens up the possibility of using these modeling frameworks to study the extent and nature of phonetic and prosodic variation across speech corpora.

Creaky Voice and Prosodic Boundaries in Spanish: An Acoustic Study

Abstract This study investigates vocalic creak in connection to the demarcation of prosodic boundaries in Spanish. Data from a picture task from 10 native Spanish speakers from diverse dialects was examined word-medially and word-finally. A total of 800 vowels were analyzed acoustically to determine if they involved creak; duration of creak relative to vowel duration was also recorded. The role of prosodic context, vowel quality and gender were examined. Our results show that creak is one of the cues that signals the end of prosodic constituents, particularly at higher prosodic levels: it averages 64% of realizations word-finally, but only 4% medially; and it is more pervasive in higher prosodic domains. Creak is more likely in males than females (80 vs. 53%), and vowel quality has no effect on creak word-finally, although word-medially /a/ is more frequently creaked than other vowels. We discuss the implications of our results in comparison with previous studies on creaky voice in Spanish and English, in particular Garellek, Marc & Patricia Keating. 2015. Phrase-final creak: Articulation, acoustics, and distribution. In Paper presented at the 89th meeting of the Linguistic Society of America, Portland, Oregon, 8–11 January, which report a higher rate of creak for Mexican Spanish females compared to males utterance-finally, and Kim, Ji Young. 2017. Voice quality transfer in the production of Spanish heritage speakers and English L2 learners of Spanish. Silvia Perpiñán. In David Heap, Itziri Moreno-Villamar & Adriana Soto-Corominas (eds.), Selected papers from the 44th linguistic symposium on romance languages (LSRL), 191–207. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, which found creaky voice utterance-finally in L2 Spanish and heritage Spanish speakers, but not in L1 Spanish participants.

The Brain Dynamics of Syllable Duration and Semantic Predictability in Spanish.

This study examines the neural dynamics underlying the prosodic (duration) and the semantic dimensions in Spanish sentence perception. Specifically, we investigated whether adult listeners are aware of changes in the duration of a pretonic syllable of words that were either semantically predictable or unpredictable from the preceding sentential context. Participants listened to the sentences with instructions to make prosodic or semantic judgments, while their EEG was recorded. For both accuracy and RTs, the results revealed an interaction between duration and semantics. ERP analysis exposed an interactive effect between task, duration and semantic, showing that both processes share neural resources. There was an enhanced negativity on semantic process (N400) and an extended positivity associated with anomalous duration. Source estimation for the N400 component revealed activations in the frontal gyrus for the semantic contrast and in the parietal postcentral gyrus for duration contrast in the metric task, while activation in the sub-lobar insula was observed for the semantic task. The source of the late positive components was located on posterior cingulate. Hence, the ERP data support the idea that semantic and prosodic levels are processed by similar neural networks, and the two linguistic dimensions influence each other during the decision-making stage in the metric and semantic judgment tasks.

Exploring the effects of restraining the use of gestures on narrative speech

Research on gesture production has emphasized the strong relationship between speech and gesture. Studies have explored whether the inability to gesture is detrimental to speech at different levels. However, findings are still inconclusive and research that focuses on a complete set of acoustic prosodic measures, including F0 and intensity are lacking. Also, studies have used very controlled tasks but evidence is lacking about spontaneous speech. The present study investigates the effects of restraining hand gestures on semi-spontaneous narrative speech. Twenty native Italian speakers described the content of short comic strips to a listener in two conditions: Non-Restraining gestures (N); Restraining gestures (R) (i.e., the speakers had to sit on their hands). The following speech variables were examined: speech length (number of words and speech length in seconds), disfluencies (filled pauses, self-corrections, repetitions, insertions, interruptions) and prosodic properties related to speech rate, F0 and intensity. Overall, the results showed that speakers’ inability to gesture does not significantly affect their narrative speech performance in terms of speech length, fluency and acoustic features. When repeating the analysis with the exclusion of the participants who gestured very little in the N condition, however, a slightly different pattern of results emerged; this leaves open the possibility that the inability to gesture may impact individuals differently, depending on the extent to which they rely on gesture when speaking. Further work is needed to shed more light on the role of gestures on the prosodic level of speech production which also takes into account individuals’ communicative and cognitive inclinations.