Cogprints

The psychological reality of rhythm classes: Perceptual studies

Ramus, Franck and Dupoux, Emmanuel and Mehler, Jacques (2003) The psychological reality of rhythm classes: Perceptual studies. [Conference Paper]

This is the latest version of this eprint.

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF
156Kb

Abstract

Linguists have traditionally classified languages into three rhythm classes, namely stress-timed, syllable-timed and mora-timed languages. However, this classification has remained controversial for various reasons: the search for reliable acoustic cues to the different rhythm types has long remained elusive; some languages are claimed to belong to none of the three classes; and few perceptual studies has bolstered the notion. We have previously proposed an acoustic/phonetic model of the different types of linguistic rhythm, and of their categorisation as such by listeners. Here, we present perceptual experiments that directly test the notion of rhythm classes, our model's predictions, and the question of intermediate languages. Language discrimination experiments were run using a speech resynthesis technique to ensure that only rhythmic cues were available to the subjects. Languages investigated were English, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan and Polish. Our results are consistent with the idea that English and Dutch are stress-timed, Spanish and Catalan are syllable-timed, but Polish seems to be different from any other language studied and thus may constitute a new rhythm class. We propose that perceptual studies tapping the ability to discriminate languages' rhythm are the proper way to generate more empirical data relevant to rhythm typology.

Item Type:Conference Paper
Keywords:speech rhythm, prosody, language discrimination, speech perception, stress-timing, syllable-timing
Subjects:Psychology > Psycholinguistics
Psychology > Cognitive Psychology
Psychology > Perceptual Cognitive Psychology
Linguistics > Phonology
ID Code:3079
Deposited By: Ramus, Dr Franck
Deposited On:23 Jul 2003
Last Modified:11 Mar 2011 08:55

Available Versions of this Item

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page