Data from a total of 24 speakers reading 720 utterances from Catalan, English, and Spanish show that differences in rhythm metrics emerge even when syllable structure and vowel reduction are controlled for in the experimental materials, strongly suggesting that important differences in timing exist in these languages, and thus that the rhythmic percept is not solely dependent on these two phonological properties in a given language. Further analyses of the data indicate that the rhythmic class distinctions under consideration finely correlate with differences in the way languages instantiate two prosodic timing processes, namely durational marking of prosodic heads and prosodic edges. A prosody-based hypothesis is proposed regarding the importance of these durational patterns across languages for the perception of rhythmic contrasts.
Index Terms: rhythm, index measures, prosody-based view of rhythm, prominence duration, final lengthening, Spanish language, Catalan, English, Spanish.
Cite as: Prieto, P., Vanrell, M.d.M., Astruc, L., Payne, E., Post, B. (2010) Speech rhythm as durational marking of prosodic heads and edges. evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish. Proc. Speech Prosody 2010, paper 951
@inproceedings{prieto10_speechprosody,
author={Pilar Prieto and Maria del Mar Vanrell and Lluïsa Astruc and Elinor Payne and Brechtje Post},
title={{Speech rhythm as durational marking of prosodic heads and edges. evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish}},
year=2010,
booktitle={Proc. Speech Prosody 2010},
pages={paper 951}
}