Prosodic Phrasing in Spontaneous Swedish
(2003) In Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique de Lund 43.- Abstract
- One of the most important functions of prosody is to divide the flow of speech into chunks. The chunking, or prosodic phrasing, of speech plays an important role in both the production and perception of speech. This study represents a move away from the laboratory speech examined in previous, related studies on prosodic phrasing in Swedish, since a spontaneous, Southern Swedish speech material is investigated. The study is, however, not primarily intended as a study of the Southern Swedish dialect; rather Southern Swedish is used as a convenient object on which to test various hypotheses about the phrasing function of prosody in spontaneous speech. The study comprises both analyses of production data and perception experiments, and both... (More)
- One of the most important functions of prosody is to divide the flow of speech into chunks. The chunking, or prosodic phrasing, of speech plays an important role in both the production and perception of speech. This study represents a move away from the laboratory speech examined in previous, related studies on prosodic phrasing in Swedish, since a spontaneous, Southern Swedish speech material is investigated. The study is, however, not primarily intended as a study of the Southern Swedish dialect; rather Southern Swedish is used as a convenient object on which to test various hypotheses about the phrasing function of prosody in spontaneous speech. The study comprises both analyses of production data and perception experiments, and both the phonetics and phonology of prosodic phrasing is dealt with. First, the distribution of prosodic phrase boundaries in spontaneous speech is examined by considering it as a reflection of optimality theoretic constraints that restrain the production and perception of speech. Secondly, the phonetic realization of prosodic phrase boundaries is investigated in a study on articulation rate changes within the prosodic phrase. Evidence of phrase-final lengthening, a reduction of the articulation rate in the final part of the prosodic phrase, is found. The tonal means used to signal coherence within the prosodic phrase is subsequently investigated. An attempt is made to test the two Lund intonation models’ capacities for describing spontaneous speech. The two approaches have different implications for the amount of preplanning needed, which makes them particularly interesting to compare by testing spontaneous data. The results indicate that no or little preplanning is needed to produce tonally coherent phrases. No evidence is found to suggest e.g. that speakers accommodate for the length of the upcoming phrase by starting longer phrases with a higher F0 than short phrases. An explanation is sought for variation in F0 starting points found in the data despite F0’s insensitivity to phrase length. It is concluded that F0 is used to signal coherence even across prosodic phrase boundaries. It is furthermore found that tonal coherence signals are used to override strong boundary signals in spontaneous speech, thereby making initially unplanned additions possible. Finally, the perception of boundary strength is examined in two perception experiments. Listeners are found to agree well in their perceptual judgments of boundary strength, and it is shown that the main correlate to perceived boundary strength in spontaneous speech is pause length. The useful distinction between weak, prosodic phrase boundaries and strong, prosodic utterance boundaries in descriptions of read speech is found to be inappropriate for descriptions of spontaneous speech. It fails to capture the conflicting local and global signals of boundary strength and coherence that arise when strong boundary signals are overriden by coherence signals. The possibility to use conflicting signals in this way is seen as an important asset to the speaker as it makes changes in the speech plan possible, and it is regarded to be a characteristic of prosodic phrasing in spontaneous speech. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Popular Abstract in Swedish
Den här studien behandlar prosodisk frasering. Det talade språket fraseras på ett sådant sätt att ord som hör nära samman innehållsmässigt och/eller syntaktiskt också produceras tillsammans i en grupp. Mellan ordgrupperna – de s k prosodiska fraserna – hör vi gränser. De prosodiska frasgränserna kan således sägas vara det talade språkets punkter och kommatecken. De spelar sannolikt en viktig roll för vår förståelse av tal.
I den här studien undersöks såväl produktionen som perceptionen av prosodiska frasgränser i spontant producerat tal. Först undersöks distributionen av prosodiska frasgränser. Distributionen antas reflektera begränsningar hos talaren och lyssnaren, t ex... (More) - Popular Abstract in Swedish
Den här studien behandlar prosodisk frasering. Det talade språket fraseras på ett sådant sätt att ord som hör nära samman innehållsmässigt och/eller syntaktiskt också produceras tillsammans i en grupp. Mellan ordgrupperna – de s k prosodiska fraserna – hör vi gränser. De prosodiska frasgränserna kan således sägas vara det talade språkets punkter och kommatecken. De spelar sannolikt en viktig roll för vår förståelse av tal.
I den här studien undersöks såväl produktionen som perceptionen av prosodiska frasgränser i spontant producerat tal. Först undersöks distributionen av prosodiska frasgränser. Distributionen antas reflektera begränsningar hos talaren och lyssnaren, t ex begränsningar för hur mycket tal som talaren kan planera åt gången i den spontana talsituationen, och på vilket sätt frasgränserna kan fördelas i talet utan att lyssnaren går miste om budskapet. Därefter undersöks de prosodiska medel som talare använder för att gruppera tal i prosodiska fraser. Talare använder prosodiska medel för att markera dels gränser mellan fraser, dels samhörighet mellan orden inom frasen. I den här studien undersöks huvudsakligen temporala och tonala medel. Reduktionen av artikulationshastigheten i slutet av den prosodiska frasen är en viktig gränssignal. Pauser och pausers längd spelar också en betydelsefull roll i gränssignaleringen samt för gränsernas uppfattade styrka. Av stor vikt för vår förståelse av talat språk verkar dessutom den tonala signaleringen av samhörighet mellan ord vara. De frekventa tankepauserna i spontant tal tycks tolkas som just tankepauser tack vare en tonal fortsättningssignalering efter pausen, en tonal signalering av samhörighet med det föregående. Likaså tycks tillägg tolkas som tillägg snarare än början på ett nytt yttrande tack vare möjligheten till tonal signalering av samhörighet mellan prosodiska fraser. Genom att studera prosodisk frasering i spontant tal lär vi oss därmed även något om hur tal planeras. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/21074
- author
- Hansson, Petra LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- Gronnum, Nina, Institut for Almen og Anvendt Sprogvidenskap, Kopenhavns universitet
- organization
- publishing date
- 2003
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- intonation., spontaneous speech, optimality theory, prominence, grouping, phrasing, Southern Swedish, Swedish, speech planning, speech production, speech perception, prosody, phonology, phonetics, Fonetik, fonologi
- in
- Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique de Lund
- volume
- 43
- pages
- 184 pages
- publisher
- Linguistics and Phonetics
- defense location
- Eden, Paradisgatan 5.
- defense date
- 2003-03-22 10:15:00
- ISSN
- 0347-2558
- ISBN
- 91-628-5569-7
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 2d536299-c656-470b-b6d6-f39a9424fc96 (old id 21074)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 15:23:15
- date last changed
- 2019-05-23 16:56:12
@phdthesis{2d536299-c656-470b-b6d6-f39a9424fc96,
abstract = {{One of the most important functions of prosody is to divide the flow of speech into chunks. The chunking, or prosodic phrasing, of speech plays an important role in both the production and perception of speech. This study represents a move away from the laboratory speech examined in previous, related studies on prosodic phrasing in Swedish, since a spontaneous, Southern Swedish speech material is investigated. The study is, however, not primarily intended as a study of the Southern Swedish dialect; rather Southern Swedish is used as a convenient object on which to test various hypotheses about the phrasing function of prosody in spontaneous speech. The study comprises both analyses of production data and perception experiments, and both the phonetics and phonology of prosodic phrasing is dealt with. First, the distribution of prosodic phrase boundaries in spontaneous speech is examined by considering it as a reflection of optimality theoretic constraints that restrain the production and perception of speech. Secondly, the phonetic realization of prosodic phrase boundaries is investigated in a study on articulation rate changes within the prosodic phrase. Evidence of phrase-final lengthening, a reduction of the articulation rate in the final part of the prosodic phrase, is found. The tonal means used to signal coherence within the prosodic phrase is subsequently investigated. An attempt is made to test the two Lund intonation models’ capacities for describing spontaneous speech. The two approaches have different implications for the amount of preplanning needed, which makes them particularly interesting to compare by testing spontaneous data. The results indicate that no or little preplanning is needed to produce tonally coherent phrases. No evidence is found to suggest e.g. that speakers accommodate for the length of the upcoming phrase by starting longer phrases with a higher F0 than short phrases. An explanation is sought for variation in F0 starting points found in the data despite F0’s insensitivity to phrase length. It is concluded that F0 is used to signal coherence even across prosodic phrase boundaries. It is furthermore found that tonal coherence signals are used to override strong boundary signals in spontaneous speech, thereby making initially unplanned additions possible. Finally, the perception of boundary strength is examined in two perception experiments. Listeners are found to agree well in their perceptual judgments of boundary strength, and it is shown that the main correlate to perceived boundary strength in spontaneous speech is pause length. The useful distinction between weak, prosodic phrase boundaries and strong, prosodic utterance boundaries in descriptions of read speech is found to be inappropriate for descriptions of spontaneous speech. It fails to capture the conflicting local and global signals of boundary strength and coherence that arise when strong boundary signals are overriden by coherence signals. The possibility to use conflicting signals in this way is seen as an important asset to the speaker as it makes changes in the speech plan possible, and it is regarded to be a characteristic of prosodic phrasing in spontaneous speech.}},
author = {{Hansson, Petra}},
isbn = {{91-628-5569-7}},
issn = {{0347-2558}},
keywords = {{intonation.; spontaneous speech; optimality theory; prominence; grouping; phrasing; Southern Swedish; Swedish; speech planning; speech production; speech perception; prosody; phonology; phonetics; Fonetik; fonologi}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Linguistics and Phonetics}},
school = {{Lund University}},
series = {{Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique de Lund}},
title = {{Prosodic Phrasing in Spontaneous Swedish}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/4381470/912845.pdf}},
volume = {{43}},
year = {{2003}},
}