• Corpus ID: 59860072

PHRASE BOUNDARIES AND PEAK ALIGNMENT: AN ACOUSTIC AND ARTICULATORY STUDY

@inproceedings{Mcke2007PHRASEBA,
  title={PHRASE BOUNDARIES AND PEAK ALIGNMENT: AN ACOUSTIC AND ARTICULATORY STUDY},
  author={Doris M{\"u}cke and Anne Hermes},
  year={2007}
}

• D. Mücke, A. Hermes
• Published 2007
• Physics

ABSTRACT The present study investigates the effect of an upcoming phrase boundary on peak alignment in rising pitch accents in a variety of German (Vienna). We measured the synchronisation of F0 peaks with acoustic segments and articulatory movements. As expected, the closer the tone bearing unit is to the phrase boundary, the earlier the F0 peak is aligned. Alignment is more stable in relation to articulatory movements than it is in relation to syllable or segment boundaries. More precisely, the F0 peak is aligned with the oral closing gesture. With increasing time pressure from a phrase boundary two compensatory effects were found: the closing gesture is slowed down (pre-boundary lengthening) and the H peak is realised earlier (it is shifted away leftwards from the boundary). Keywords: tonal alignment, articulatory gestures, boundary tone, pre-boundary lengthening, time pressure 1. INTRODUCTION It has been shown for several related languages that the timing of F0 peaks with segmental boundaries is affected by an upcoming phrase boundary: In Dutch [1] and Mexican Spanish [2], F0 peaks shifted leftwards in phrase final position . While in both languages the end of the rise was pushed leftwards with increasing time pressure, the start of the rise remained more or less constant. A s a result the rise contours were steeper and the pit ch excursion was shorter. Upcoming phrase boundaries also affect the timing of segments at the boundary, in that they ar e lengthened. In the articulatory dimension, final lengthening is analysed as the result of changes in the localised speaking rate [3]. Eg. in English [4] , oral closing gestures in VC sequences slowed down in phrase final position. For the present study, we investigate effects of an upcoming phrase boundary on the tonal alignment of F0 peaks with articulatory gestures. 2. METHOD Speakers: We selected two native speakers from Vienna, both female, one student (JS) and one make-up artist (JR), both in their mid twenties. Speech Material: We developed a set of speech materials designed to elicit eight target words in phrase medial and final position (table 1). Target words contain bilabial or alveolar nasals.