Rhythm and Syllable Timing in Phrase Level Stress Patterning

1975 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 739-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Folkins ◽  
Creighton J. Miller ◽  
Fred D. Minifie
Keyword(s):  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Finger Tapping ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Temporal Differences ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
Stress Patterns

The rhythm of syllables in repetitions of a phrase was measured with a finger-tapping task. These rhythm measurements were shown to vary with phrase level stress patterning. However, this relationship was not invariant. Acoustic measurements of the time between syllables showed stress pattern relationships similar to those observed in the rhythm-tapping task. The temporal differences between stress patterns appear to be (1) evident even when acoustic measurements exclude syllable duration, (2) significant even at a fast speaking rate, and (3) variable between speakers.

Where Is the Beat? The Neural Correlates of Lexical Stress and Rhythmical Well-formedness in Auditory Story Comprehension

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 1119-1131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katerina D. Kandylaki ◽  
Karen Henrich ◽  
Arne Nagels ◽  
Tilo Kircher ◽  
Ulrike Domahs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Lexical Stress ◽  
Story Comprehension ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Sensorimotor Network ◽  
Electrophysiological Studies ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Domain Independent ◽  
The Brain

While listening to continuous speech, humans process beat information to correctly identify word boundaries. The beats of language are stress patterns that are created by combining lexical (word-specific) stress patterns and the rhythm of a specific language. Sometimes, the lexical stress pattern needs to be altered to obey the rhythm of the language. This study investigated the interplay of lexical stress patterns and rhythmical well-formedness in natural speech with fMRI. Previous electrophysiological studies on cases in which a regular lexical stress pattern may be altered to obtain rhythmical well-formedness showed that even subtle rhythmic deviations are detected by the brain if attention is directed toward prosody. Here, we present a new approach to this phenomenon by having participants listen to contextually rich stories in the absence of a task targeting the manipulation. For the interaction of lexical stress and rhythmical well-formedness, we found one suprathreshold cluster localized between the cerebellum and the brain stem. For the main effect of lexical stress, we found higher BOLD responses to the retained lexical stress pattern in the bilateral SMA, bilateral postcentral gyrus, bilateral middle fontal gyrus, bilateral inferior and right superior parietal lobule, and right precuneus. These results support the view that lexical stress is processed as part of a sensorimotor network of speech comprehension. Moreover, our results connect beat processing in language to domain-independent timing perception.

scholarly journals Perceptually Salient Sound Distortions and Apraxia of Speech: A Performance Continuum

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (2S) ◽  
pp. 631-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarina L. Haley ◽  
Adam Jacks ◽  
Jessica D. Richardson ◽  
Julie L. Wambaugh
Keyword(s):  
Left Hemisphere ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Dynamic Performance ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
External Criterion ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
Left Hemisphere Stroke ◽  
A Performance

Purpose We sought to characterize articulatory distortions in apraxia of speech and aphasia with phonemic paraphasia and to evaluate the diagnostic validity of error frequency of distortion and distorted substitution in differentiating between these disorders. Method Study participants were 66 people with speech sound production difficulties after left-hemisphere stroke or trauma. They were divided into 2 groups on the basis of word syllable duration, which served as an external criterion for speaking rate in multisyllabic words and an index of likely speech diagnosis. Narrow phonetic transcriptions were completed for audio-recorded clinical motor speech evaluations, using 29 diacritic marks. Results Partial voicing and altered vowel tongue placement were common in both groups, and changes in consonant manner and place were also observed. The group with longer word syllable duration produced significantly more distortion and distorted-substitution errors than did the group with shorter word syllable duration, but variations were distributed on a performance continuum that overlapped substantially between groups. Conclusions Segment distortions in focal left-hemisphere lesions can be captured with a customized set of diacritic marks. Frequencies of distortions and distorted substitutions are valid diagnostic criteria for apraxia of speech, but further development of quantitative criteria and dynamic performance profiles is necessary for clinical utility.

Effects of Frequency-Shifted Auditory Feedback on Fundamental Frequency of Long Stressed and Unstressed Syllables

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrich Natke ◽  
Karl Theodor Kalveram
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Auditory Feedback ◽  
Test Word ◽  
Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Negative Feedback Mechanism ◽  
Syllable Duration ◽  
Complete Test ◽  
Stress Patterns

Twenty-four normally speaking subjects had to utter the test word /tatatas/with different stress patterns repeatedly. Auditory feedback was provided by headphones and was shifted downwards in frequency during randomly selected trials while the subjects were speaking the complete test word. If the first syllable was long stressed, fundamental frequency of the vowel significantly increased by 2 Hz (corresponding to 25.5 cents) under frequency-shifted auditory feedback of .5 octave downwards, whereas under a shift of one semitone downwards a trend of an increase could be observed. If the first syllable was unstressed, fundamental frequency remained unaffected. Regarding the second syllable, significant increases or a trend for an increase of fundamental frequency was found in both shifting conditions. Results indicate a negative feedback mechanism that controls the fundamental frequency via auditory feedback in speech production. However, within a syllable a response could be found only if the syllable duration was long enough. Compensation for frequency-shifted auditory feedback still is quite imperfect. It is concluded that control of fundamental frequency is rather important on a suprasegmental level.

Stress in the Absence of Morphological Conditioning: An Experimental Investigation of Stress in Greek Acronyms

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthi Revithiadou ◽  
Kalomoira Nikolou ◽  
Despina Papadopoulou
Keyword(s):  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Stress System ◽  
Syllable Type ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
Final Segment ◽  
Stress Dependent ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Theoretical Analyses

Greek is a morphology-dependent stress system, where stress is lexically specified for a number of individual morphemes (e.g., roots and suffixes). In the absence of lexically encoded stress, a default stress emerges. Most theoretical analyses of Greek stress that assume antepenultimate stress to represent the default (e.g., Malikouti-Drachman & Drachman 1989; Ralli & Touratzidis 1992; Revithiadou 1999) are not independently confirmed by experimental studies (e.g., Protopapas et al. 2006; Apostolouda 2012; Topintzi & Kainada 2012; Revithiadou & Lengeris in press). Here, we explore the nature of the default stress in Greek with regard to acronyms, given their lack of overt morphology and fixed stress pattern, with a goal of exploring how stress patterns are shaped when morphological information (encapsulated in the inflectional ending) is suppressed. For this purpose, we conducted two production (reading aloud) experiments, which revealed, for our consultants, first, an almost complete lack of antepenultimate stress and, second, a split between penultimate and final stress dependent on acronym length, the type of the final segment and the syllable type of the penultimate syllable. We found two predominant correspondences: (a) consonant-final acronyms and end stress and (b) vowel-final acronyms and the inflected word the vowel represents, the effect being that stress patterns for acronyms are linked to the inflected words they represent only if enough morphonological information about the acronym’s segments is available to create familiarity effects. Otherwise, we find a tendency for speakers to prefer stress at stem edges.

Prosodic patterns in Hebrew child-directed speech

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 629-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
OSNAT SEGAL ◽  
BRACHA NIR-SAGIV ◽  
LIAT KISHON-RABIN ◽  
DORIT RAVID
Keyword(s):  
Word Segmentation ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Lexical Categories ◽  
Closed Class ◽  
Final Stress ◽  
Stress Patterns ◽  
Developmental Analysis

ABSTRACTThe study examines prosodic characteristics of Hebrew speech directed to children between 0 ; 9–3 ; 0 years, based on longitudinal samples of 228,946 tokens (8,075 types). The distribution of prosodic patterns – the number of syllables and stress patterns – is analyzed across three lexical categories, distinguishing not only between open- and closed-class items, but also between these two categories and a third, innovative, class, referred to as between-class items. Results indicate that Hebrew CDS consists mainly of mono- and bisyllabic words, with differences between lexical categories; and that the most common stress pattern is word-final, with parallel distributions found for all categories. Additional analyses showed that verbs take word-final stress, but nouns are both trochaic and iambic. Finally, a developmental analysis indicates a significant increase in the number of iambic words in CDS. These findings have clear implications regarding the use of prosody for word segmentation and assignment of lexical class in infancy.

scholarly journals MisMatch Negativity-study showing pre-lexical sensitivity to both primary Final Accent and secondary Initial Accent in French

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noémie te Rietmolen ◽  
Radouane El Yagoubi ◽  
Corine Astésano
Keyword(s):  
Mismatch Negativity ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Phonological Representation ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Cognitive Representation ◽  
Metrical Structure ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Stress Patterns

AbstractIn French, accentuation is not lexically distinctive and tightly intertwined with intonation. This has led to the language being described of as ‘a language without accent’ and to French listeners being alleged ‘deaf to stress’. However, if one considers Di Cristo’s model in which the metrical structure of speech plays a central role, it becomes possible to envision stress templates underlying the cognitive representation of words. This event-related potential (erp) study examined whether French listeners are sensitive to the French primary final accent (fa) and secondary initial accent (ia), and whether the accents are part of the French phonologically expected stress pattern. Two oddball studies were carried out. In the first study, in one condition, deviants were presented without (−fa) and standards with final accent (+fa), while in another condition, these positions were switched. We obtained asymmetric mmn waveforms, such that deviants −fa elicited a larger mmn than deviants +fa (which did not elicit an mmn), pointing toward a preference for stress patterns with fa. Additionally, the difference waveforms between identical stimuli in different positions within the oddball paradigms indicated −fa stimuli to be disfavored whether they were the deviants or the standards. In the second study, standards were always presented with both the initial and final accent, while deviants were presented either without final accent (−fa) or without initial accent (−ia). Here, we obtained mmns both to deviants −fa and to deviants −ia, although −fa deviants elicited a more ample mmn. Nevertheless, the results show that French listeners are not deaf to the initial and final accents, pointing instead to an abstract phonological representation for both accents. In sum, the results argue against the notion of stress deafness for French and instead suggest accentuation to play a more important role in French speech comprehension than is currently acknowledged.

Towards a Native OPERA Hypothesis: Musicianship and English Stress Perception

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092110494 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Choi
Keyword(s):  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Musical Experience ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Verbal Intelligence ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Stress Perception ◽  
Perceptual Strategy ◽  
Stress Patterns

Musical experience facilitates speech perception. French musicians, to whom stress is foreign, have been found to perceive English stress more accurately than French non-musicians. This study investigated whether this musical advantage also applies to native listeners. English musicians and non-musicians completed an English stress discrimination task and two control tasks. With age, non-verbal intelligence and short-term memory controlled, the musicians exhibited a perceptual advantage relative to the non-musicians. This perceptual advantage was equally potent to both trochaic and iambic stress patterns. In terms of perceptual strategy, the two groups showed differential use of acoustic cues for iambic but not trochaic stress. Collectively, the results could be taken to suggest that musical experience enhances stress discrimination even among native listeners. Remarkably, this musical advantage is highly consistent and does not particularly favour either stress pattern. For iambic stress, the musical advantage appears to stem from the differential use of acoustic cues by musicians. For trochaic stress, the musical advantage may be rooted in enhanced durational sensitivity.

Nuclear Stress and Information Structure

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Luisa Zubizarreta
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Stress Patterns

This chapter discusses and evaluates different approaches to the nuclear stress (NS) algorithm in light of the variability in stress pattern observed for certain constructions in German and English in wide focus contexts (‘unmarked’ stress patterns), in opposition to the rigid (right-most) nature of NS in Spanish/Italian. The chapter also briefly discusses the case of nuclear stress in narrow focus contexts (‘marked’ stress patterns), and points to recent research that suggests that ‘unmarked’ and ‘marked’ stress patterns originate through distinct mechanisms.

scholarly journals Prosodic modulation in the babble of cochlear implanted and normally hearing infants: A perceptual study using a visual analogue scale

2018 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 481-502
Author(s):  
Ilke De Clerck ◽  
Michèle Pettinato ◽  
San Gillis ◽  
Jo Verhoeven ◽  
Steven Gillis
Keyword(s):  
Visual Analogue Scale ◽  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Cochlear Implants ◽  
Analogue Scale ◽  
Stress Pattern ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Acoustic Measurements ◽  
Prosodic Cues

This study investigates prosodic modulation in the spontaneous canonical babble of congenitally deaf infants with cochlear implants (CI) and normally hearing (NH) infants. Research has shown that the acoustic cues to prominence are less modulated in CI babble. However acoustic measurements of individual cues to prominence give incomplete information about prosodic modulation. In the present study, raters are asked to judge prominence since they simultaneously take into account all prosodic cues. Disyllabic utterances produced by CI and NH infants were presented to naive adult raters who had to indicate the degree and direction of prosodic modulation between syllables on a visual analogue scale. The results show that the babble of infants with CI is rated as having less prosodic modulation. Moreover, segmentally more variegated babble is rated as having more prosodic modulation. Raters do not perceive the babble to be predominantly trochaic, which indicates that the predominant stress pattern of Dutch is not yet apparent in the children’s productions.

A Case Study of an Ataxic Dysarthric: Cineradiographic and Spectrographic Observations

1975 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond Kent ◽  
Ronald Netsell
Keyword(s):  
Speech Production ◽  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Speaking Rate ◽  
Skilled Movement ◽  
Speech Characteristics ◽  
Neuromuscular Abnormalities ◽  
Ataxic Dysarthria ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Stress Patterns

Cineradiographic and spectrographs analyses were performed to study the speech production of a subject who presented the classical neurologic signs of cerebellar lesion and who had speech characteristics like those that have been reported for ataxic dysarthria. These analyses were conducted with special attention to the deviant perceptual dimensions that have been described for ataxic speech. Examination of the cineradiographic and spectrographic records revealed conspicuous abnormalities in speaking rate, stress patterns, articulatory placements for both vowels and consonants, velocities of articulator movements, and fundamental frequency contours. In general, our physiological and acoustic observations of ataxic dysarthria were compatible wth existing perceptual descriptions of this condition. The data for the subject are discussed in the light of current hypotheses concerning cerebellar participation in the regulation of skilled movement. Particular suggestions are made concerning the nature of the neuromuscular abnormalities that may underlie the aberrant motorics of ataxic dysarthria.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document