The paper reports on a perception experiment in German that investigated the neuro-cognitive processing of information structural concepts and their prosodic marking using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Experimental conditions controlled the information status (given vs. new) of referring and non-referring target expressions (nouns vs.…

Indicates that native and nonnative speakers alike can make use of intonation if they explicitly listen for it, although prosodic features are generally ignored when other cues (semantic and pragmatic) are available. (Author/RL)

Attempts to show that audio-visual feedback is more effective in intonation learning than auditory feedback. While practice time did not seem to be a major factor, results showed audio-visual feedback to be more effective than auditory feedback. In addition, feedback modality was shown to influence learning behavior. (SL)

Confirms previous observations about the tonal character of English stress. Notes that Finnish listeners relied on duration as the perceptual cue for noun/noun phrase distinction (blackbird/black bird), reflecting the absence of linguistic contrasts based on an active use of the larynx in standard Finnish stress and intonation. (Author/RL)

Describes a study done to determine which intonational parameters are most important to the meaning being conveyed within different social settings. Defines the factors that appear to influence the use of pitch and/or intensity prominence on negative words. Found that, in many situations, interactional rules take precedence over linguistic rules.…

In the first part of this study, we measured the alignment (relative to segmental landmarks) of the low F0 turning points between the accentual fall and the final boundary rise in short Dutch falling-rising questions of the form "Do you live in [place name]?" produced as read speech in a laboratory setting. We found that the alignment of…