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ESCA Workshop on ProsodyLund, Sweden |
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ESCA Workshop on ProsodyLund, Sweden |
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There are a few theories of intonation to account for various phonological facts in different languages such as English, French, Swedish, etc. Depending on their respective framework (glossematics, generative or linear phonology, etc.), these theories provide some understanding of observable phenomena of acoustic or auditory nature, such as the evolution of fundamental frequency in the sentence, the perception of syllable pitch and intensity, and so forth. Nevertheless, the apparent large number of discrepancies that appear between the theoretically predicted facts and the physical reality often baffle researchers dealing with the acoustical nature of the speech signal. In their eyes, any theoretical insight on prosody may seem useless. The object of this paper is to discuss some of the reasons for these discrepancies through examples, and to provide a better understanding of what an intonation theory delivers.
Bibliographic reference. Martin, Philippe (1993): "Models and reality: from intonation theory to intonation curves", In Prosody-1993, 276-279.