Questions tagged [prosody]
The rhythm, stress and intonation of speech.
10 questions
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Why does speech speed seem to vary between different languages?
I feel that French and Spanish speakers speak their languages faster than English speakers do. Is this difference real, or is it just a mistake in my observation (note: I am much less familiar with ...
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How does ghetto talk work in tonal languages?
Among historically low income/education groups in the US and in my native Mexico City, "ghetto talk" is heavy on the use of pitch to convey meaning. I've always attributed this to people compensating ...
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Is it common to use the minor third for calling someone?
In German, calling someone's two-syllable name is tied very strongly to the minor third.
In languages that like to have a stressed last syllable, I would expect the last syllable to be higher than ...
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Does pre-fortis clipping only operate within a syllable? If not, what is its actual scope?
English is known to have a phenomenon of "pre-fortis clipping": in certain contexts, vowel and sonorant phonemes before a fortis/voiceless consonant are realized with shorter duration than the same ...
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What are those little numbers when I extract pitch in Praat?
If I extract pitch in praat all those little numbers show up! What are those values standing for?
little numbers and pink lines (1263x665, 172 KB)
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Why don't we use frequency change in ToBI?
As we know the ToBI system is designed to transcribe prosody and within it you can transcribe only High and Low prosody changes. The question is here Why don't we implement frequency change and/or ...
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How is IPrA going to change the way we transcribe prosody?
There are some proposals for IPrA (International Prosodic Alphabet, similar to IPA but for prosody).
The meeting for IPrA (link to UCLA webpage on the topic) is planning to be held in BU in mid 2016. ...
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Is it accurate to claim that autosegmental phonology is a theory of suprasegmental prosodic phenomena?
I'm a little unclear on what autosegmental phonology is vis-a-vis suprasegmentals. Although I understand the nuts-and-bolts of autosegmental phonology, it is not clear to me if it negates a division ...
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Is vowel harmony prosodic, suprasegmental, or both?
I read that the division between suprasegments and segments is not black and white. I take this claim to have two logical entailments:
There are prosodic features that are segmental. For example, ...
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Why is the utterance and intonational phrase "post-lexical"?
In the right side of the image below, it is implied that constituents up to the level of the word are considered "postlexical" and those below it are "lexical".
I can easily imagine that the prosodic ...
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