We report on three experiments that aim at measuring the role of prosody in the acceptability and interpretation of discourse relations between utterances connected by two French discourse markers, viz. "et" "and" and "alors" "then/well." These two discourse markers are highly polyfunctional: "et"…

Perceptual grouping is fundamental to many auditory processes. The Iambic-Trochaic Law (ITL) is a default grouping strategy, where rhythmic alternations of duration are perceived iambically (weak-strong), while alternations of intensity are perceived trochaically (strong-weak). Some argue that the ITL is experience dependent. For instance, French…

IN THE FIRST PART OF THIS STUDY, A SET OF MEANINGLESS SENTENCES USING ONLY THE SYLLABLE "PA" BUT IMITATING THE INTONATIONAL CONTOUR OF THE SENTENCE "IL VIENDRA ME VOIR DEMAIN MATIN A SEPT HEURES" WERE USED TO PROVIDE SYLLABLES TO BUILD UP 12 SEMI-ARTIFICIAL NONSENSE WORDS. THIRTY-TWO NATIVE SPEAKERS WERE REQUESTED TO (1) SAY WHICH WAS THE ACCENTED…

An analysis of rhythm in French. The research project concentrated on two points: the perception of a "click" superimposed on an utterance and the reproduction of the click by a knock simultaneous with the stimulus. Conclusions based on linguistic and non-linguistic aspects are drawn. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Recent studies of rising intonation contours in French, in particular the acoustical differences that serve to distinguish Yes/No questions from other rising intonations are reviewed. The preliminary results of a pilot study of rising intonations in French, in which average curves were obtained from spectrographic measurements of fundamental…

A study to assess the feasibility of the use of low frequencies for teaching foreign language to the hearing impaired is described. The subjects were unimpaired Japanese students, aged 18 and 19, in beginning French language study. Recorded sentences translated into English, French, and Mandarin Chinese were combined in various ways and presented…