Articulation rate and the duration of syllables and stress groups in connected speech

Abstract

Further analyses have been made on readings of two scripts by six talkers [T. H. Crystal and A. S. House, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 72, 705-716 (1982); 84, 1932-1935 (1988); 83, 1553-1573 (1988)]. Durations of syllables and stress groups are compared to earlier data and various pertinent published reports, and are used to evaluate reports of articulation rate variability. The average durations of syllables of different complexity have a quasilinear dependency on the number of phones in the syllable, where the linear factor and the vowel durations are functions of stress. The duration of stress groups has a quasilinear dependency on the number of syllables and the number of phones. It was found that variability of articulation rate, measured as the average syllable duration for interpause intervals (runs), is not random, but is the natural consequence of the content of the run. Durations of comparable runs of different talkers are highly correlated. Major determinants of average syllable duration are the average number of phones per syllable and the proportion of either + stress phones or + stress syllables in the run.

Regional variation and articulation rate in French

“…These results are in agreement with observations made for English (Crystal & House, 1990;Jacewicz et al, 2010). However, it is important to note that the differences we have observed between the regional variants do not depend on the speaking style.…”

“…It has been claimed that AR is faster in reading than in conversation (Grosjean & Deschamps, 1975;Lucci, 1983). However, some studies present an inverse tendency (Avanzi, Schwab, Dubosson & Goldman, 2012;Crystal & House, 1990;Woehrling, Boula de Mareüil & Adda-Decker, 2008). Moreover, it has been shown that the length of the utterance affects AR (Bartkova 1991;Quené, 2008): the longer the utterance, the faster the AR 1 .…”

Spectral tilt as a cue to word segmentation in infancy and adulthood

“…Thus, the stressed syllables were, on average, 310 msec long, and the unstressed syllables were all approximately 185 msec long. This ratio (1.67:1) is a close match with Crystal and House's (1990) report of the ratio of stressed CV syllables to unstressed CV syllables in the fluent speech of a fast talker (1.85:1).…”

Leading up the lexical garden path: Segmentation and ambiguity in spoken word recognition.

“…Listeners have been shown to use these changes in duration in segmenting sequences of repeated syllables (Nakatani & Schaffer, 1978). However, because other factors such as phonetic, prosodic, discourse level, and interspeaker variation also affect the duration of segments and syllables, duration cues may not be sufficiently reliable to allow the segmentation of connected speech (for further discussion of sources of variation in segment and syllable duration, see Anderson & Port, 1994;Crystal & House, 1990;Klatt, 1976).…”