Elinor Payne

Phonotactic and phrasal properties of speech rhythm. Evidence from Catalan, English, and Spanish

The goal of this study is twofold: first, to examine in greater depth the claimed contribution of differences in syllable structure to measures of speech rhythm for three languages that are reported to belong to different rhythmic classes, namely, English, Spanish, and Catalan; and second, to investigate differences in the durational marking of prosodic heads and final edges of prosodic constituents between the three languages and test whether this distinction correlates in any way with the rhythmic distinctions. Data from a total of 24 speakers reading 720 utterances from these three languages show that differences in the rhythm metrics emerge even when syllable structure is controlled for in the experimental materials, at least between English on the one hand and Spanish/Catalan on the other, suggesting that important differences in durational patterns exist between these languages that cannot simply be attributed to differences in phonotactic properties. In particular, the vocalic variability measures nPVI-V, @DV, and VarcoV are shown to be robust tools for discrimination above and beyond such phonotactic properties. Further analyses of the data indicate that the rhythmic class distinctions under consideration finely correlate with differences in the way these languages instantiate two prosodic timing processes, namely, the durational marking of prosodic heads, and pre-final lengthening at prosodic boundaries.

Measuring Child Rhythm

Interval-based rhythm metrics were applied to the speech of English, Catalan and Spanish 2, 4 and 6 year-olds, and compared with the (adult-directed) speech of their mothers. Results reveal that child speech does not fall into a well-defined rhythmic class: for all three languages, it is more ‘vocalic’ (higher %V) than adult speech and has a tendency towards lower variability (when normalized for speech rate) in vocalic interval duration. Consonantal interval variability, however, is higher in child speech, particularly for younger children. Nevertheless, despite the identification of common, cross-linguistic patterns in child speech, the emergence of language-specific rhythmic indices is also clearly observable, even in the speech of 2 year-olds.

Non-durational indices in Italian geminate consonants

This paper presents the results of an electropalatographic investigation into non-durational properties of Italian consonant gemination. The evidence suggests a more palatalised tongue configuration during the production of geminate coronal sonorants and stops than in their non-geminate counterparts. Evidence is also found of differences in the active articulator, with a laminal articulation more characteristic of geminates, and an apical articulation of non-geminates. It is proposed that Italian gemination be thought of more broadly as fortition, and the implications of this are discussed.

Tonal Targets in Early Child English, Spanish, and Catalan.

This study analyses the scaling and alignment of low and high intonational targets in the speech of 27 children – nine English-speaking, nine Catalan-speaking and nine Spanish-speaking – between the ages of two and six years. We compared the intonational patterns of words controlled for number of syllables and stress position in the child speech to the adult target speech provided by their mothers, and to a dataset of adult-directed speech recorded at a later stage for the purpose of measuring pitch height. A corpus of 624 utterances was elicited using a controlled naming task and analysed within the Autosegmental Metrical framework. Measuring the pitch height and pitch timing of nuclear pitch accents, we found that once the effects of syllable duration are accounted for, young children reach tonal targets with remarkable precision. Overall, the results indicate that the phonetic aspects of intonation are acquired from a very early age. Even the youngest children show adult-like alignment of the low target, although mastery of the high target increases with age. Young Spanish-speaking children, however, show a more precise attainment of pitch scaling and alignment of their (high) tonal targets than do Catalan and English children; where the ambient language lies within a general prosodic typology appears to influence the acquisition of tonal targets.

Prosodic Shaping of Consonant Gemination in Cypriot Greek

This paper presents an experimental investigation of durational variation in lexical and post-lexical geminate alveolar laterals, under different stress conditions, in Cypriot Greek. Lexical geminates are found to be longer than post-lexicals, and both geminates and non-geminates are longer in word-initial position. The durational distinction is robust in all conditions, but particularly for word-initial lexical geminates. Post-lexical geminates and word-initial lexical geminates are significantly longer when pre-stress. Word-initial geminates are longer when preceded by a word-final nasal (the condition for post-lexical gemination), thus creating a kind of ‘supergeminate’ consonant and indicating that word-final nasals are not deleted, as has previously been thought to be the case. Implications for the phonological analysis of Cypriot Greek geminates and the role of prosodic and phonotactic restrictions are considered.