The perception of prominence: a Rapid Prosody Transcription study with Estonian listeners

This study investigates the effect of different prosodic variables (e.g., pitch, syllable duration, presence of pitch accent and intonation boundary) and non-prosodic variables (e.g., type of verbal argument, presence of clause boundary, part-of-speech and number of syllables) on the perception of prominence in spontaneous Estonian. Following the methodology of Rapid Prosody Transcription, 396 randomly selected speech fragments from ten speakers were presented over the internet to 51 prosodically untrained listeners, whose task was to highlight the words they heard as prominent. The same dataset was annotated for intonational pitch accents and boundary tones by two experts. The results demonstrate that the strongest predictors of prominence perception are the pitch and duration of stressed syllables together with the presence of a pitch accent while the non-prosodic variables are somewhat weaker. The study corroborates earlier findings in that the perceptual salience in spoken language processing depends largely on the acoustic signal-based cues. Kokkuvõte. Nele Ots ja Eva Liina Asu: Prominentsuse taju eesti keeles: prosoodia kiirtranskribeerimise uurimus eesti keele kõnelejatega. Artikkel uurib eri prosoodiliste tunnuste (põhitoon, rõhulise silbi kestus, tooni aktsendi ja intonatsioonipiiri olemasolu) ning mitteprosoodiliste tunnuste (verbi argument, klausipiiri olemasolu, sõnaliik ja silpide arv) mõju prominentsuse tajule spontaanses eesti keeles. Lähtudes prosoodia kiirtranskriptsiooni (Rapid Prosody Transcription, RPT) metodoloogiast, esitati 396 juhuslikult valitud spontaanse kõne lõiku interneti teel 51-le prosoodia valdkonnas koolitamata kuulajale, kelle ülesandeks oli tekstis esile tõsta sõnad, mis kuuldusid neile rõhulisena. Kaks kõneprosoodia uurijat transkribeerisid samades kõne lõikudes tooniaktsendid ja intonatsioonipiirid. Tulemused näitavad, et prominentsuse taju tähtsaimad ennustajad on tooniaktsent, põhitoon ning silbi kestus. Mitteprosoodilised tunnused mõjutavad prominentsuse taju mõnevõrra vähem. Katse tulemused kinnitavad varasemate uurimuste järeldust, et tajutud prominentsus sõltub eelkõige akustilistest signaalipõhistest tunnustest. Märksõnad: prominentsus, taju, intonatsioon, tooniaktsent, sõnaliik, argumendistruktuur, prosoodia kiirtranskriptsioon (RPT), eesti kee

Prosodic phrasing of the parenthetical palun ‘please’ in Estonian requests

This study investigates the prosody of the Estonian parenthetical palun ‘please’ in imperative requests. The occurrence of prosodic phrase boundary cues such as pauses, pre-boundary lengthening, and creaky voice as well as pitch characteristics and accentuation are analysed. The analysis is based on 753 utterances, where palun appears in three different positions: initial, medial or final. The requests were elicited using context descriptions from 21 female speakers of Estonian. The results show that palun is not phrased as a separate intonation phrase and that its intonation and accentuation vary depending on its position in the host utterance. Utterance-initially, palun always receives an intonational pitch accent while utterance-finally it is unaccented. It is concluded that the integrated prosody of palun may derive from its discourse marker-like function. Its prosody may be representative of certain other categories of parentheticals with similar functional properties such as comment clauses and reporting verbs, but different from functionally more independent parentheticals that express a proposition or speech act of their own. Kokkuvõte. Eva Liina Asu, Heete Sahkai, Pärtel Lippus: Kiilu palun prosoodiline fraseerimine eesti palvetes. Käesolev artikkel uurib kiilu palun prosoodiat eesti keele käsklausena vormistatud palvetes. Vaadeldakse prosoodilise fraasipiiri tunnuste (pausid, lõpupikenemine ja kärisev häälelaad) esinemist ning põhitooni ja aktsentueerimist. Materjaliks on 753 lausungit, kus palun esineb kolmes eri positsioonis: lause alguses, keskel ja lõpus. Materjal salvestati 21 eesti emakeelega naiskõnelejalt katses, kus osalejad pidid palveid esitama nii, nagu nad kontekstikirjelduse põhjal vastavas olukorras seda teeksid. Tulemused näitavad, et sõna palun ei fraseerita eraldi intonatsioonifraasina ja selle intonatsioon ja aktsentueeritus varieeruvad sõltuvalt lausepositsioonist. Lause alguses saab palun alati intonatsioonilise tooniaktsendi, aga lause lõpus on see aktsentueerimata. Kokkuvõtvalt võib palun’i integreeritud prosoodia tuleneda tema diskursusemarkeri-laadsest funktsioonist. Sellisena võib ta sarnaneda prosoodiliselt ka mõningate teiste sarnaselt funktsioneerivate kiiludega, nagu episteemilised või evidentsiaalsed kiilud (nt ma arvan, ütles ta), aga erineda funktsionaalselt iseseisvamatest kiiludest, mis väljendavad eraldiseisvat propositsiooni või kõneakti

The bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems

The bouba/kiki effect-the association of the nonce word bouba with a round shape and kiki with a spiky shape-is a type of correspondence between speech sounds and visual properties with potentially deep implications for the evolution of spoken language. However, there is debate over the robustness of the effect across cultures and the influence of orthography. We report an online experiment that tested the bouba/kiki effect across speakers of 25 languages representing nine language families and 10 writing systems. Overall, we found strong evidence for the effect across languages, with bouba eliciting more congruent responses than kiki. Participants who spoke languages with Roman scripts were only marginally more likely to show the effect, and analysis of the orthographic shape of the words in different scripts showed that the effect was no stronger for scripts that use rounder forms for bouba and spikier forms for kiki. These results confirm that the bouba/kiki phenomenon is rooted in crossmodal correspondence between aspects of the voice and visual shape, largely independent of orthography. They provide the strongest demonstration to date that the bouba/kiki effect is robust across cultures and writing systems. This article is part of the theme issue 'Voice modulation: from origin and mechanism to social impact (Part II)'.Peer reviewe

Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

Linguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.Peer reviewe

The phonetics and phonology of Estonian intonation

This thesis is not available on this repository until the author agrees to make it public. If you are the author of this thesis and would like to make your work openly available, please contact us: [email protected] Library can supply a digital copy for private research purposes; interested parties should submit the request form here: http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/digital-content-unit/ordering-imagesPlease note that print copies of theses may be available for consultation in the Cambridge University Library's Manuscript reading room. Admission details are at http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/manuscripts-university-archive