9.1840, FYI: Eng/Jap speech rhythm, Semiotic Society

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LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-1840. Thu Dec 24 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.1840, FYI: Eng/Jap speech rhythm, Semiotic Society

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=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Wed, 23 Dec 1998 18:10:47 -0500 (EST)
From:  Keiichi Tajima <ktajima at cs.indiana.edu>
Subject:  Dissertation on English / Japanese speech rhythm

2)
Date:  Thu, 24 Dec 1998 03:16:37 -0800 (PST)
From:  alan harris <vcspc005 at csun.edu>
Subject:  SEMCOM: JOIN SSA! (fwd)

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Wed, 23 Dec 1998 18:10:47 -0500 (EST)
From:  Keiichi Tajima <ktajima at cs.indiana.edu>
Subject:  Dissertation on English / Japanese speech rhythm


I would like to announce that my doctoral dissertation, "Speech
Rhythm in English and Japanese: Experiments in Speech Cycling", is
now available on the Web.  I have made compressed and uncompressed
PostScript versions available.  If you are interested, please pick up
a copy at the following URL:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~ktajima/thesis-1s.ps (uncompressed, 2.3MB)

or

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~ktajima/thesis-1s.ps.Z (compressed, 700KB)

A list of other publications is available at:

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~ktajima/pubs.html

A brief abstract of my dissertation follows:


	Speech Rhythm in English and Japanese:
			Experiments in Speech Cycling
		Keiichi Tajima
		Indiana University

Languages are felt to be spoken with different kinds of rhythm.
Linguists have proposed typological distinctions such as
"stress-timing" vs. "syllable-timing".  Despite their intuitive
appeal, there is little phonetic evidence for the distinction.
Meanwhile, generative phonology does not clearly explicate how formal
representations of linguistic rhythm, such as metrical grids, are
phonetically interpreted.

This thesis compared the rhythmic organization of English and Japanese
using a novel experimental method, called "speech cycling", in which
subjects produce a phrase repeatedly in time with a controlled
metronome.  The task induces overtly rhythmic forms of speaking, and
overcomes certain difficulties of finding physical correlates of
speech rhythm and its variation across languages.

Three speech cycling experiments were conducted with native English
and Japanese speakers.  Experiment 1 found that both groups of
speakers prefer rhythmic patterns in which prominent syllables fall at
"simple harmonic phases", such as halfway or two-thirds of the way
between the start of successive repetitions.  English and Japanese
differed, however, in the types of syllables that were prominent, and
thereby drawn toward simple harmonic phases.  Experiment 2 showed that
initial syllables of foot-level units were more "temporally stable"
than were foot-internal syllables in both languages when inherent
vowel duration was used to "perturb" the timing of vowel onsets.
Experiment 3 found that English stressed syllables were more
temporally stable than were Japanese accented syllables when an extra
syllable was inserted into a foot-sized unit, suggesting that English
is more stress-timed than Japanese.

Altogether, this phonetic investigation of stylized forms of speaking
was shown to be an effective tool for understanding rhythmic
organization of speech across languages.

Thank you.

Keiichi Tajima, Ph.D
Indiana University
ktajima at indiana.edu
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~ktajima/


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 24 Dec 1998 03:16:37 -0800 (PST)
From:  alan harris <vcspc005 at csun.edu>
Subject:  SEMCOM: JOIN SSA! (fwd)


SEMCOM is an online bulletin primarily for dissemination of semiotic,
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Alan C. Harris Ph.D. and is distributed free of charge to members of
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tia, a.]
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