Although intensity has been reported as a reliable acoustical correlate of stress, it is generally considered a weak cue in the perception of linguistic stress. In natural speech stressed syllables are produced with more vocal effort. It is known that, if a speaker produces more vocal effort, higher frequencies increase more than lower frequencies. In this study, the effects of lexical stress on intensity are examined in the abstraction from the confounding accent variation. A production study was carried out in which ten speakers produced Dutch lexical and reiterant disyllabic minimal stress pairs spoken with and without an accent in a fixed carrier sentence. Duration, overall intensity, formant frequencies, and spectral levels in four contiguous frequency bands were measured. Results revealed that intensity differences as a function of stress are mainly located above 0.5 kHz, i.e., a change in spectral balance emphasizing higher frequencies for stressed vowels. Furthermore, we showed that the intensity differences in the higher regions are caused by an increase in physiological effort rather than by shifting formant frequencies due to stress. The potential of each acoustic correlate of stress to differentiate between initial-and final-stressed words was examined by linear discriminant analysis. Duration proved the most reliable correlate of stress. Overall intensity and vowel quality are the poorest cues. Spectral balance, however, turned out to be a reliable cue, close in strength to duration.
In this study, the claim that intensity, as an acoustic operationalization of loudness, is a weak cue in the perception of linguistic stress is reconsidered. This claim is based on perception experiments in which loudness was varied in a naive way: All parts of the spectrum were amplified uniformly, i.e., loudness was implemented as intensity or gain. In an earlier study it was found that if a speaker produces stressed syllables in natural speech, higher frequencies increase more than lower frequencies. Varying loudness in this way would therefore be more realistic, and should bring its true cue value to the surface. Results of a perception experiment bear out that realistic intensity level manipulations ͑i.e., concentrated in the higher frequency bands͒ provide stronger stress cues than uniformly distributed intensity differences, and are close in strength to duration differences.
In recent years, the formal elements of Dutch Intonation have been laid down in two comprehensive models ('t Hart, Collier and Cohen 1990, Gussenhoven andRietveld 1992). With these two formal models at our disposal, the stage seems set for further explorations, notably of the relationship between form and function. The present study focused on acoustic correlates of a major functional contrast', viz. the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity, two functions featuring prominently in everyday communication. Generally speaking, declarative utterances are used for making announcements, relating events, stating conclusions and so on. By contrast, interrogative utterances make a direct appeal to a listener for a reply. While declarative utterances usually have the most basic form of clause available in a language, interrogativity may be marked by special syntactic and/or lexical means, in particular by Inversion of subject and finite verb or by the presence of a question word. These, however, are by no means the sole indicators of the contrast between declarativity and interrogativity. It is assumed that Intonation, also, plays an important role, notably in interrogative utterances lacking the lexico/syntactic devices of interrogativity ('declarative questions'). Thus, if Dutch interrogativity has intonational characteristics of its own, it seems plausible for such characteristics to be stronger äs lexico/ syntactic marking for interrogativity is weaker.For the purpose of our research, declarativity and interrogativity are seen äs forming a continuum, with Statements (S) at one extreme end, and declarative questions (D) at the other; in between are the wh-questions (W, marked both by question word and Inversion) and yes/no questions (Y, marked by Inversion only). Our objectives were (i) to determine to what extent the acoustic properties of interrogativity· are different from those of declarativity, and (ii) to pinpoint possible acoustic differences among the question types themselves. Also, we wished to ascertain to what extent such acoustic characteristics still need to be incorporated into the two formal models of Dutch Intonation mentioned above. Question Intonation across languages.Crosslinguistically, question Intonation has always been strongly associated with a local terminal rise in pitch. In a medieval text from Münster, monks were instructed in Latin to raise their pitch at question marks when reciting the written texts of liturgical prayers (cf. Hadding-Koch 1961).
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