Is Spanish really syllable-timed?

Pointon, Graham

doi:10.1016/s0095-4470(19)31479-2

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…Many instrumental studies subsequently sought and failed to find any evidence of isochrony (cf. Lea, 1974; Pointon, 1980; Roach, 1982; Dauer, 1983). Nevertheless, though the acoustic basis is elusive, the percept of a distinction between two broad categories is strong, and empirically supported (Ramus, Dupoux, & Mehler, 2003, for example, show adult ability to distinguish between rhythmic categories, but not within them) and fuels on-going investigation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Child Rhythm

et al. 2011

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Interval-based rhythm metrics were applied to the speech of English, Catalan and Spanish 2, 4 and 6 year-olds, and compared with the (adult-directed) speech of their mothers. Results reveal that child speech does not fall into a well-defined rhythmic class: for all three languages, it is more 'vocalic' (higher %V) than adult speech and has a tendency towards lower variability (when normalized for speech rate) in vocalic interval duration. Consonantal interval variability, however, is higher in child speech, particularly for younger children. Nevertheless, despite the identification of common, cross-linguistic patterns in child speech, the emergence of language-specific rhythmic indices is also clearly observable, even in the speech of 2 year-olds.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring Child Rhythm

et al. 2011

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“…However, experimental investigation could not provide any support for the notion of isochronous feet for stress‐timed languages (Shen and Peterson 1962; Bolinger 1965; Faure, Hirst, and Chafcouloff 1980; Nakatani, O’Connor, and Aston 1981; Strangert 1985; Lehiste 1990) nor were previous studies able to prove that syllable durations were isochronous in syllable‐timed languages (Delattre 1966; Pointon 1980; Manrique and Signorini 1983). Contradictory findings were found for mora‐timing (Han 1962; Beckman 1982; Port, Salman, and Maeda 1987) where only Port et al (1987) found some basis of support for the existence of morae as a constituent timing unit.…”

Section: Rhythm and Measurementmentioning

confidence: 91%

The acoustic reality of the Kachruvian circles: a rhythmic perspective

Low¹

2010

World Englishes

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This paper investigates whether the rhythmic properties of varieties of English found in each of the concentric circles of Kachru's model can, in any way, be elucidated by the 'Three Circles' model. A measurement and comparison of the rhythm of three varieties of English: British English (from the Inner Circle), Singapore English (from the Outer Circle) and Mainland Chinese English (from the Expanding Circle) is done from recordings made of one subject from each variety reading The North Wind and the Sun passage. Measurements are made of successive vowel durations and the pairwise variability index (PVI) developed by Low, Grabe, and Nolan is calculated in an attempt to capture the rhythmic properties of the three varieties. The PVI has been shown to effectively capture the broad rhythmic typology between stress-based and syllable-based varieties of English. In particular, this paper examines whether it is the case that Mainland Chinese English (a norm-dependent variety) differs significantly in the rhythmic domain from Singapore English (a norm-developing variety) and be proven to be statistically similar to British English (a norm-providing variety).

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“…The empirical basis of the rhythm class hypothesis has been investigated extensively, but experimental support for isochrony in speech is lacking (Beckman, 1992, Laver, 1994. In stress-timed languages, interstress intervals are far from equal, and interstress-intervals do not pattern more regularly in stresstimed than in syllable-timed languages (Shen and Peterson, 1962, Bolinger, 1965, Delattre, 1966, Faure, Hirst and Chafcouloff 1980, Pointon, 1980, Wenk and Wioland, 1982, Roach 1982, Dauer, 1983, Manrique and Signorini, 1983, Nakatani, O'Connor and Aston, 1981, Dauer, 1987, Eriksson, 1991. Nor are syllables or morae of roughly equal length in syllable-timed languages (Pointon, 1980, Wenk and Wioland, 1982, Roach 1982, Dauer, 1983.…”

Section: Evidence For Stress-and Syllable-timing From Duration Measurmentioning

confidence: 99%

Durational variability in speech and the Rhythm Class Hypothesis

Grabe¹,

Low²

Laboratory Phonology 7

487

638

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In this paper, we provide evidence for rhythmic classifications of speech from duration measurements. Our investigation differs from previous studies in two ways. Firstly, we do not relate speech rhythm to phonological units such as interstress intervals or syllable durations. Instead, we calculate durational variability in successive acoustic-phonetic intervals using Pairwise Variability Indices. Secondly, we compare measurements from languages traditionally classified as stress-, syllable-or mora-timed with measurements from hitherto unclassified languages. The values obtained agree with the classification of English, Dutch and German as stress-timed and French and Spanish as syllable-timed: durational variability is greater in stress-timed languages than in syllable-timed languages. Values from Japanese, a mora-timed language, are similar to those from syllable-timed languages. But previously unclassified languages do not fit into any of the three classes. Instead, their values overlap with the margins of the stress-timed and the syllable-timed group. Low & Grabe 2/16 Durational variability and speech rhythm and syllable-timed rhythm: (i) there is considerable variation in syllable length in a language spoken with stress-timed rhythm, whereas in a language spoken with syllable-timed rhythm, syllables tend to be equal in length, and (ii) in syllable-timed languages, interstress intervals are unevenly spaced. Roach's findings did not support either claim. The syllable-timed languages in his sample exhibited greater variability in syllable durations than the stress-timed languages. Roach also observed a wider range of percent deviations in interstress intervals in stress-timed than in syllable-timed languages. Roach concluded that measurements of time intervals in speech could not provide evidence for rhythm classes. Roach's view has been supported by Dauer's (1983) study. Dauer compared interstress intervals in English, Thai, Spanish, Italian and Greek. She found that interstress intervals were no more regular in English, a stress-timed language, than in Spanish, a syllable-timed language. Dauer concluded that the search for acoustic phonetic correlates of stress-and syllable-timing was futile. Isochrony in mora-timing was investigated by Han (1962) Port, Al-Ani and Maeda (1980), and Port, Dalby and O'Dell (1987). Port et al. (1987) argue that these studies provide some preliminary support for the mora as a constant time unit. But other researchers have questioned the acoustic basis for moratiming (Oyakawa, 1971, Beckman, 1982, Hoequist, 1983a,b). Beckman (1982)'s data, for instance, did not show that segments vary in length in Japanese in order to compensate for intrinsic durations of adjacent segments so that morae are equal in length. In short, although popular among linguists, the rhythm class hypothesis has been contradicted by numerous empirical studies. Abercrombie's view of speech rhythm as a combination of chest and stress-pulses has long been disproven (e.g. Ladefoged, 1967), destroying the physiologic...

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Is Spanish really syllable-timed?

Cited by 38 publications

References 1 publication

Measuring Child Rhythm

Measuring Child Rhythm

The acoustic reality of the Kachruvian circles: a rhythmic perspective

Durational variability in speech and the Rhythm Class Hypothesis

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