Syllable Duration Research Articles

Aspects of pitch in textsetting: a suprasegmental analysis of two Turkish versions of Franz Schubert’s Ellens Gesang III (D. 839)

Abstract Focusing on the interaction of linguistic stress with the poetic and musical meters, and the melodic contour, this paper provides a qualitative suprasegmental analysis of two Turkish versions (T1: Ah! Güzel yavrum; T2: Duy ey sevgili sesimi!) of Franz Schubert’s Ellens Gesang III (D. 839). The acceptability of Turkish lyrics despite the failure of T1/T2 to align stressed syllables with strong positions in the iambic feet points towards the relative insignificance of poetic meter. Based on an analysis of the 36 downbeats, alignment rates (the second German version [95.8 %] > the original German version [91.7 %] > T2 [66.7 %] > T1 [50 %]) suggest that factors such as word length and default final stress may have proven counter-productive for Turkish in stress-meter alignment. As long as musical phrasing is in conformity with linguistic phrasing, a melodic contour that mirrors phrasal/sentential intonation may reinforce intended meaning despite mismatched syllables. Singable lyrics need not exhibit absolute stress-peak alignment such that various degrees of mismatches may be tolerable, depending on factors such as melismatic versus syllabic notation, the relative duration of adjacent syllables, and whether or not the mismatch occurs at tactus level.

Oral Reading Prosody and Comprehension in Persons With Aphasia: A Preliminary Investigation.

This study acoustically characterized the oral reading prosody of persons with aphasia (PWA) and neurotypical controls for a connected text and aimed to determine which prosodic features were most associated with performance on a reading comprehension task. Six PWA and six neurotypical, age- and education-matched controls participated in this preliminary study. Participants read Paragraph 3 of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition aloud and subsequently answered five comprehension questions. A total of 11 measures related to phrasing, intonation, and expressivity were extracted using Praat for each participant in order for comparisons to be made across participant groups and associations examined with reading comprehension scores. The Mann-Whitney U test suggested a significant difference between PWA and control participants for intersentential pause durations, pausal intrusion frequency, and duration of pausal-pausal syllables. Although statistically nonsignificant, intersentential pause duration, pausal intrusion frequency, pausal intrusion duration, duration of prepausal syllables, and intensity amplitude following a syntactic juncture were all moderately correlated (all rs > .58) with comprehension of Paragraph 3 of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition in PWA. All measures were weakly correlated with comprehension for the control participants. PWA demonstrated statistically significant longer durations for intersentential pauses and prepausal syllables, and a greater number of pausal intrusions. Interestingly, three of the five measures moderately correlated to comprehension were those that were statistically different between the two participant groups. As such, preliminary findings of this study warrant further investigation in a larger sample of PWA.

Unveiling early signs of Parkinson’s disease via a longitudinal analysis of celebrity speech recordings

Numerous studies proposed methods to detect Parkinson’s disease (PD) via speech analysis. However, existing corpora often lack prodromal recordings, have small sample sizes, and lack longitudinal data. Speech samples from celebrities who publicly disclosed their PD diagnosis provide longitudinal data, allowing the creation of a new corpus, ParkCeleb. We collected videos from 40 subjects with PD and 40 controls and analyzed evolving speech features from 10 years before to 20 years after diagnosis. Our longitudinal analysis, focused on 15 subjects with PD and 15 controls, revealed features like pitch variability, pause duration, speech rate, and syllable duration, indicating PD progression. Early dysarthria patterns were detectable in the prodromal phase, with the best classifiers achieving AUCs of 0.72 and 0.75 for data collected ten and five years before diagnosis, respectively, and 0.93 post-diagnosis. This study highlights the potential for early detection methods, aiding treatment response identification and screening in clinical trials.

The effects of implicit corrective feedback on production of lexical stress in L2 English

The interactionist approach to second language acquisition has yielded a plethora of studies confirming the positive impact of interaction and corrective feedback on second language (L2) development. Nevertheless, only a few studies have attempted to investigate the development of L2 prosody using the interactionist approach. The current study contributes to this line of research by investigating the relationship between recasts and the production of primary stress in L2 English. Following a pretest-posttest design, 68 L1 Arabic speakers were randomly assigned to control and intervention groups. The pre- and posttest comprised sentence-completion and information-exchange tasks, whereas the intervention was a role-play task that dyads carried out with the researcher. The intervention group received a recast upon producing target words with misplaced primary stress, whereas the control group did not receive any corrective feedback. The results of acoustic analyses, which focused on syllable duration, intensity, and pitch, indicated a positive relationship between recasts and development of primary stress placement. The results were also supported by expert listener judgments. The findings suggest that interaction and implicit corrective feedback play a positive role in the development of lexical stress.

Prosody matters: Preserved prominence marking strategies in people with Parkinson's disease independent of motor status.

While many studies focus on segmental variation in Parkinsonian speech, little is known about prosodic modulations reflecting the ability to adapt to communicative demands in people with Parkinson's disease (PwPD). This type of prosodic modulation is important for social interaction, and it involves modifications in speech melody (intonational level) and articulation of consonants and vowels (segmental level). The present study investigates phonetic cues of prosodic modulations with respect to different focus structures in mild dysarthric PwPD as a function of levodopa. Acoustic and kinematic speech parameters of 25 PwPD were assessed in two motor conditions. Speech production data from PwPD were collected before (medication-OFF) and after levodopa intake (medication-ON) by means of 3-D electromagnetic articulography. On the acoustic level, intensity, pitch, and syllable durations were analyzed. On the kinematic level, movement duration and amplitude were investigated. Spatio-temporal modulations of speech parameters were examined and compared across three different prosodic focus structures (out-of-focus, broad focus, contrastive focus) to display varying speech demands. Overall, levodopa had beneficial effects on motor performance, speech loudness, and pitch modulation. Acoustic syllable durations and kinematic movement durations did not change, revealing no systematic effects of motor status on the temporal domain. In contrast, there were spatial modulations of the oral articulators: tongue tip movements were smaller and lower lip movements were larger in amplitude under levodopa, reflecting a more agile and efficient articulatory movement under levodopa. Thus, respiratory-phonatory functions and consonant production improved, while syllable duration and tongue body kinematics did not change. Interestingly, prominence marking strategies were comparable between the medication conditions under investigation, and in fact, appear to be preserved in mild dysarthric PwPD.

Dysfluency in primary progressive aphasia: Temporal speech parameters

ABSTRACT Analysing spontaneous speech in individuals experiencing fluency difficulties holds potential for diagnosing speech and language disorders, including Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA). Dysfluency in the spontaneous speech of patients with PPA has mostly been described in terms of abnormal pausing behaviour, but the temporal features related to speech have drawn little attention. This study compares speech-related fluency parameters in the three main variants of PPA and in typical speech. Forty-three adults participated in this research, thirteen with the logopenic variant of PPA (lvPPA), ten with the non-fluent variant (nfvPPA), nine with the semantic variant (svPPA), and eleven who were healthy age-matched adults. Participants’ fluency was assessed through a picture description task from which 42 parameters were computed including syllable duration, speaking pace, the duration of speech chunks (i.e. interpausal units, IPU), and the number of linguistic units per IPU and per second. The results showed that each PPA variant exhibited abnormal speech characteristics reflecting various underlying factors, from motor speech deficits to higher-level issues. Out of the 42 parameters considered, 37 proved useful for characterising dysfluency in the three main PPA variants and 35 in distinguishing among them. Therefore, taking into account not only pausing behaviour but also temporal speech parameters can provide a fuller understanding of dysfluency in PPA. However, no single parameter by itself sufficed to distinguish one PPA group from the other two, further evidence that dysfluency is not dichotomous but rather multidimensional, and that complementary multiparametric analyses are needed.

Rima Aliterasi dan Asonansi sebagai Sumber Ritma Linguistik Surah Fatihah yang Mensinkroni Gelombang Otak

Sound rhythm is one of the factors that make the sound of the Holy Quran rhythmic and synchronous that change the rhythm of human brain waves. However, less studies have been found, and previous studies have focused more on the end rhyme system (end faselah) of the verses of the Qur'an. Thus, we conducted an acoustic phonetic study on the rhyming system in the verses of the Qur'an which is the source of the rhythmic sound in the verses of the Qur'an which contributes to the aesthetics of the sound. Acoustic phonetic analysis was performed on sound waves from Surah al-Fatihah using PRAAT software by comparing its intensity with Arabic News. As a result, we found the existence of a rhyme system of alliteration and assonance in the verses of this surah, that is, in the first, third, fifth and seventh verses which are highlighted by the contours of intensity and time duration of letters, syllables and words that show the greatness of God, giving birth to a feeling of closeness to God in addition to giving birth to the effect of persuasion which is the basis of spiritual therapy. In addition, the end rhyme system found in the Fatihah Chapter is significant (p<0.05) compared to the Arabic News. In conclusion, the Fatihah Chapter also has a rhyme system in its verses, not only at the end of the verse, suggesting that the brain that listens to the sound of the Qur'an is able to synchronize and form rhythmic and harmonious waves that influence mental and physical well-being.

Kesan Modul Terapi Realiti (MTR) Terhadap Ciri-ciri dan Kemurungan Mangsa Buli dari Perspektif Islam

Sound rhythm is one of the factors that make the sound of the Holy Quran rhythmic and synchronous that change the rhythm of human brain waves. However, less studies have been found, and previous studies have focused more on the end rhyme system (end faselah) of the verses of the Qur'an. Thus, we conducted an acoustic phonetic study on the rhyming system in the verses of the Qur'an which is the source of the rhythmic sound in the verses of the Qur'an which contributes to the aesthetics of the sound. Acoustic phonetic analysis was performed on sound waves from Surah al-Fatihah using PRAAT software by comparing its intensity with Arabic News. As a result, we found the existence of a rhyme system of alliteration and assonance in the verses of this surah, that is, in the first, third, fifth and seventh verses which are highlighted by the contours of intensity and time duration of letters, syllables and words that show the greatness of God, giving birth to a feeling of closeness to God in addition to giving birth to the effect of persuasion which is the basis of spiritual therapy. In addition, the end rhyme system found in the Fatihah Chapter is significant (p<0.05) compared to the Arabic News. In conclusion, the Fatihah Chapter also has a rhyme system in its verses, not only at the end of the verse, suggesting that the brain that listens to the sound of the Qur'an is able to synchronize and form rhythmic and harmonious waves that influence mental and physical well-being.

Prosody in narratives: An exploratory study with children with sex chromosomes trisomies

Although language delays are common in children with sex chromosome trisomies [SCT], no studies have analysed their prosodic abilities. Considering the importance of prosody in communication, this exploratory study aims to analyse the prosodic features of the narratives of 4-year-old children with SCT.Participants included 22 children with SCT and 22 typically developing [TD] children. The Narrative Competence Task was administered to elicit the child's narrative. Each utterance was prosodically analysed considering pitch and timing variables.Considering pitch, the only difference was the number of movements since the utterances of children with SCT were characterised by a lower speech modulation. However, considering the timing variables, children with SCT produced a faster speech rate and a shorter final syllable duration than TD children.Since both speech modulation and duration measures have important syntactic and pragmatic functions, further investigations should deeply analyse the prosodic skills of children with SCT in interaction with syntax and pragmatics.

Vocalic and intervocalic intervals in the speech of educated Idoma speakers of English

The measurement of vocalic and intervocalic intervals, which has been proposed as a more reliable acoustic correlate of rhythm than inter-stress intervals or syllable duration, is usually not included in the description of the rhythm of Nigerian English, and little is known about how this contributes to the impression of rhythm in the speech of educated Idoma speakers of English. This study therefore investigated the speech rhythm of educated Idoma speakers of English by measuring vocalic and intervocalic intervals as acoustic correlates of speech rhythm. A carefully selected passage, read by 50 educated Idoma speakers of English, was analysed acoustically and statistically. The normalised pairwise variability index (nPVI) was employed to account for vocalic and intervocalic intervals in the speech of the participants in order show how this contributes to the impression of rhythm in their speech. The study indicated that there was no durational variability between successive vowels, in addition to low variability index values for vocalic and intervocalic intervals. These results showed syllable-timing rhythm. However, patterns from female participants along the continuum were less syllable timed than the male participants. There were also indications of sentence type variations with compound sentences, in some cases, less syllable timed than simple sentences.

L2 prosody effects on pronunciation teaching and oral communication: updated

Pronunciation accuracy in a foreign language requires mastering production of both segmental (consonants and vowels) and prosody (features that operate from the syllable domain, such as lexical/phrasal stress, pitch accent, rhythm, intonation, and voice quality) of speech. This study aims to elucidate the significance of instruction in pronunciation, with a focus on L2 prosody as a pivotal component in the enhancement of oral communication skills. The objective is to reduce pronunciation discrepancies and augment conversational interactions in spoken communication. The theoretical review of our research is based on studies such as, Munro and Derwing (2020 [1999]) Derwing and Munro (2015), Levis (2018), which underscore the role of prosody in the context of pronunciation instruction and in L2 oral communication. We also have supported in studies such as, Ortega-Lebaria et al. (2023), Silva Jr. (2023), for the selection of techniques and guidelines for extracting both durational and melodic parameters from L2 prosody-focused research. Regarding the methodology, we gathered data from Brazilian English speakers and native speakers of English from the USA. Each participant read a passage, from which we selected ten utterances for subsequent analysis. The acoustic analysis was conducted based on the duration of phonetic syllables (V-V units) and the fundamental frequency (F0), both normalized using Lobanov’s z-score. We also employed ANOVA statistical tests to examine the group effect for both duration and F0 parameters. Our findings indicate notable differences between native and Brazilian English speakers’ productions for both duration and F0. We conclude, even on a preliminary basis, that the application of L2 prosody is relevant in improving pronunciation instruction and enhancing oral communication.

The prosody of theme, rheme and focus in Egyptian Arabic: A quantitative investigation of tunes, configurations and speaker variability

This paper investigates the prosody of sentences elicited in three Information Structure (IS) conditions: all-new, theme-rheme and rhematic focus-background. The sentences were produced by 18 speakers of Egyptian Arabic (EA). This is the first quantitative study to provide a comprehensive analysis of holistic f0 contours (by means of GAMM) and configurations of f0, duration and intensity (by means of FPCA) associated with the three IS conditions, both across and within speakers. A significant difference between focus-background and the other information structure conditions was found, but also strong inter-speaker variation in terms of strategies and the degree to which these strategies were applied. The results suggest that post-focus register lowering and the duration of the stressed syllables of the focused and the utterance-final word are more consistent cues to focus than a higher peak of the focus accent. In addition, some independence of duration and intensity from f0 could be identified. These results thus support the assumption that, when focus is marked prosodically in EA, it is marked by prominence. Nevertheless, the fact that a considerable number of EA speakers did not apply prosodic marking and the fact that prosodic focus marking was gradient rather than categorical suggest that EA does not have a fully conventionalized prosodic focus construction.

Stability Over Time of Word Syllable Duration for Speakers With Acquired Apraxia of Speech.

Neurogenic speech and language disorders-such as acquired apraxia of speech (AOS) and aphasia with phonemic paraphasia (APP)-are often misdiagnosed due to similarities in clinical presentation. Word syllable duration (WSD)-a measure of average syllable length in multisyllabic words-serves as a proxy for speech rate, which is an important and arguably more objective clinical characteristic of AOS and APP. This study reports stability of WSD over time for speakers with AOS (and aphasia). Twenty-nine participants with AOS and aphasia (11 women and 18 men, Mage = 53.5 years, SD = 13.3) repeated 30 multisyllabic words (of three-, four-, and five-syllable lengths) on three occasions across 4 weeks. WSDs were calculated for each word and then averaged across each list (i.e., word length), as well as across combined lists (i.e., all 30 words) to yield four WSDs for each participant at each time point. Stability over time was calculated using Friedman's test for the group and using Spearman's rho for the individual level. Effects of time and word length were examined using robust mixed-effects linear regression. Friedman's tests and correlations indicated no significant difference in WSDs across sampling occasions for each word length separately or combined. WSD correlated positively with AOS severity and negatively with intelligibility but was not correlated with aphasia severity. Regression analyses confirmed WSD to be stable over time, while WSD calculated from only five tokens (i.e., WSD-5) was less stable over time. Results indicate that WSD can be a stable measure over time, at the individual and group level, providing support for its use in diagnosis and/or as an outcome measure, both clinically and for research. In general, WSD outperformed WSD-5, suggesting that it may be better to calculate WSD from more than five tokens. Stability of WSD in other populations and suitability for differential diagnosis need to be determined. Currently, differentiating disorders by speaking rate, alone, is not recommended. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.25438735.

Modeling syllable rhythms for interactive alignment studies

Many acoustic cues have been proposed as indicators and coordinators of upcoming turn-exchanges in conversational interactions, including syllable rhythm. Rhythmic coordination can help to explain close coordination of speech during these exchanges with intervals on the order of 250 ms or less, or with fluent and non-disruptive overlaps. While general questions surrounding speech rhythm remain unanswered, investigations of syllable alignment across partners in conversation can bypass such questions by assessing directly for patterns that align across vocal exchanges. We develop models of syllable rhythm for this purpose using hand-coded syllable durations from spontaneous conversations and from turn-taking responses elicited by recorded stimuli. Our approach builds on evidence that turn-takers begin planning their utterance approximately 0.5 s prior to turn endings. Syllable duration strings from appropriately identified frames are replaced by Gaussian curves to create oscillatory waveforms, and cross-correlation functions are applied to identify rhythmic continuities across exchanges. Patterns identified using this technique are explanatory of close coordination in the spontaneous exchanges, and supra-syllabic units such as the foot and phrase are identified as well. This syllable framework can be developed further by incorporating additional acoustic measures such as f;o and amplitude to build a multidimensional construct for interactional rhythm alignment.

Preceding word information for predicting speech errors in English as foreign language speech

Speech errors, including disfluency errors (e.g., filled pauses (“uh”, “um”), repetition (“I me-mean right now.”)), and mispronunciation of speech segments (e.g., “think” as /sɪŋk/) are natural occurrences in speech production and they can affect speech fluency and proficiency. Detecting these errors is important, especially in assessing second language (L2) learners. Non-native speakers often produce speech errors, even in read speech, due to increased cognitive load when simultaneously producing the current word and processing the upcoming word. By analyzing two L2 speech corpora having different types of errors (disfluency and mispronunciation), the study aims to assess the effectiveness of incorporating preceding word information in speech error prediction. The results indicate that longer syllable duration in the word preceding the mispronunciation error correlates with error production. The study extends its investigation to identify acoustic and lexical features influenced by the presence of speech errors. The study found that speech errors increase duration of speech. The study also found that words with more syllables may cause L2 speakers to produce speech errors.

Enhancing Language Learners’ Comprehensibility through Automated Analysis of Pause Positions and Syllable Prominence

This research paper addresses the challenge of providing effective feedback on spontaneous speech produced by second language (L2) English learners. As the position of pauses and lexical stress is often considered a determinative factor for easy comprehension by listeners, an automated pipeline is introduced to analyze the position of pauses in speech, the lexical stress patterns of polysyllabic content words, and the degree of prosodic contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables, on the basis of F0, intensity, and duration measures. The pipeline is applied to 11 h of spontaneous speech from 176 French students with B1 and B2 proficiency levels. It appeared that B1 students make more pauses within phrases and less pauses between clauses than B2 speakers, with a large diversity among speakers at both proficiency levels. Overall, lexical stress is correctly placed in only 35.4% of instances, with B2 students achieving a significantly higher score (36%) than B1 students (29.6%). However, great variation among speakers is also observed, ranging from 0% to 68% in stress position accuracy. Stress typically falls on the last syllable regardless of the prosodic expectations, with the strong influence of syllable duration. Only proficient speakers show substantial F0 and intensity contrasts.

Longitudinal development of second language utterance fluency, cognitive fluency, and their relationship

AbstractThe development of L2 utterance fluency has been extensively researched, whereas that of cognitive fluency has rarely been examined. This study investigated the longitudinal development of L2 utterance and cognitive fluency and their relationship. Thirty-one Chinese learners of English completed speaking tasks and a set of tasks for cognitive fluency before and after 5 months’ study abroad. The results showed that participants made a significant improvement in mean syllable duration, end-clause pause frequency, and the speed of syntactic encoding and articulation but not in mid-clause pause frequency or lexical retrieval speed. Mixed-effects modeling confirmed a significant relationship between syntactic encoding speed and mean syllable duration and mid-clause pausing. Furthermore, the significant relationships were maintained over time. The findings highlight (a) the differences between mid-clause and end-clause pausing in terms of their developmental patterns and relationship with cognitive fluency and (b) a significant role of syntactic encoding speed in L2 utterance fluency.

Initial Syllable Vowel Duration as a Temporal Measure in Persons with Stuttering: Implication for Speech Motor Control

Stuttering is a fluency disorder characterized by involuntary repetitions, prolongations and hesitation. “Relational Speech Timing Task (RST)” refers to a phenomenon where in, when a set of words with a common base word, is used with progressively increasing length of suffixes it results in progressive reduction in the duration of vowel of the initial syllable. Since individuals with stuttering are reported to have difficulties in the temporal aspects of speech, this study aimed to assess and compare the Initial Syllable Vowel Shortening(ISVS) among individuals with stuttering and Fluent age matched controls. Eight males with stuttering and eight age and gender matched fluent adults served as subjects. Eight sets of meaningful Tamil words were developed for the RST tasks. The subjects were asked to repeat the modelled stimuli and only the stutter free responses were taken for the analysis. The duration of the initial vowel in the words were measured and compared between the two groups. Results revealed that individuals with stuttering exhibited difficulties for multisyllabic words, demonstrating the subtle timing difficulties in individuals with stuttering.

Did the speech of patients with Myasthenia Gravis decline over 4 years?

To compare the speech and voice patterns of myasthenia gravis (MG) patients over four years, and correlate the results with clinical aspects of the disease. Data was collected for 4 years. The clinical assessment tools included the Quantitative Myasthenia Gravis (QMG) score, the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America (MGFA) clinical classification, and the Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life 15-item Scale (MG-QoL). To assess speech, the recorded speaking tasks were analyzed acoustically and given auditory-perceptual ratings. Sex (equal distribution) and age (p=0.949) were used as matching criteria in the final sample, which consisted of 10 individuals in the MG group (MGG) and 10 individuals in the control group (CG). After 4 years, the MG participants presented stable health status, increased mild and moderate dysarthria (from 40% to 90% of the subjects), and a significant deterioration in the respiration, phonation, and articulation subsystems. The acoustic analysis showed a decline in articulatory patterns (speech rate p=0.047, articulation rate p=0.007, mean syllable duration p=0.007) and vocal quality (increased jitter p=0.022). In the follow-up comparison, there was a significant difference between the phonation variables (shimmer and harmonic-to-noise ratio) of the MGG and CG. The MG patients presented a decline in speech over four years and an increase in mild and moderate dysarthria. Despite presenting stable health status, their respiratory, phonatory, and articulatory subsystems worsened. There was no correlation between speech patterns and clinical characteristics of the disease (severity and motor scale).

Phonetic Effects of Tonal Crowding in Persian Polar Questions.

Persian polar questions are characterized by a rise-fall followed by a low F0 plateau and a final rise. A production experiment was designed which systematically manipulated question length and the position of stress in the nuclear accented word in the question. Results revealed that distances between tones can strongly affect their scaling and alignment in predictable manner. With respect to scaling, our data show that the postnuclear low F0 target is realized considerably higher in short questions in which tonal crowding is more acute. This scaling adjustment of the L affects the following H tone, such that the final H is realized higher in tonal space, relative to the other crowding contexts. The results for duration show that in short questions, syllable duration is significantly lengthened so that there is room for tonal targets to be realized. In addition, the alignment data in this study suggest that crowding contexts incrementally affect the temporal adjustment of tonal targets. In some circumstances, tonal crowding results in anticipatory retraction of tones, while in others it results in carry-over tonal displacement depending on the direction of the prosodic pressure. These results can best be explained in an auto-segmental approach to intonational phonology in which intonation contours are treated as strings of distinct high and low tones associated with specific elements in the segmental string.