The mathematical models of intonation used in speech technology are often inaccessible to linguists. By the same token, phonological descriptions of intonation are rarely used by speech technologists, as they cannot be implemented directly in applications. Consequently, these research communities do not benefit much from each other's insights. In…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of intensive voice therapy on Cantonese speakers with Parkinson's disease. The effect of the treatment on lexical tone was of particular interest. Four Cantonese speakers with idiopathic Parkinson's disease received treatment based on the principles of Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT).…

Purpose: The authors investigated expressive and receptive intonation abilities in children with Williams syndrome (WS) and the relation of these abilities to other linguistic abilities. Method: Fourteen children with WS, 14 typically developing children matched to the WS group for receptive language (LA), and 15 typically developing children…

Results are presented from an auditory and acoustic analysis of the speech of an adult male with impaired prosody and articulation due to brain haemorrhage. They show marked effects on phonation, speech rate and articulator velocity, and a speech rhythm disrupted by "intrusive" stresses. These effects are discussed in relation to the speaker's…

Male and female, black and white political interviewees (M. Albright, B. Clinton, H. Clinton, B. Obama, C. Powell, and C. Rice) of Larry King on CNN TV are used to ascertain whether ethnicity and gender affect the way politicians actually speak. Qualitative comparisons are made of Obama's hesitations and rate with and without a threatening…

This study aimed to develop a set of evaluation criteria for English learning websites. These criteria can assist English teachers/web designers in designing effective websites for their English courses and can also guide English learners in screening for appropriate and reliable websites to use in increasing their English ability. To fulfill our…

THE FOOCHOW DIALECT IS SPOKEN BY ABOUT SEVEN TO TEN MILLION CHINESE IN THE AREA IN AND AROUND THE CITY OF FOOCHOW, MAINLAND CHINA. THIS LANGUAGE MANUAL REPRESENTS THE SPEECH OF A LITERATE PERSON FROM THAT AREA. LESSONS 1-15 CONSIST OF--(1) SEVERAL SHORT FOOCHOW PASSAGES WRITTEN IN ROMANIZATION, (2) ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, (3) A FOOCHOW TO ENGLISH…

Pitch-synchronous, time-domain operation on digitized waveforms of human speech produces artificial changes in prosodic parameters, especially fundamental frequency and rhythm. Pitch of voiced segments is raised or lowered by an algorithm which truncates or "pads," respectively, each pitch period in the stored vector by an appropriate…

Presents several minor revisions of Halle's and Keyser's theory of meter and stress. (DD)

The propensity to raise and vary the pitch of one's voice when addressing an infant or small child was investigated in a sample of 16 male and 16 female adults, half of whom were married with children and half of whom had never married and never had children. (Author/RH)

Monosyllables were recorded from a group of 24 hearing-impaired and six normal-hearing children between three and six years of age. (Author)

Challenges the belief that the intonation of yes/no questions in American English is different from that of standard British English. Reports on a study that shows that American speakers of English do not distinguish between the high-rising and low-rising intonation, and argues that the supposed difference in intonation between the two varieties…

Presents details of research on intonation in New Zealand English that demonstrate the existence of measurable and reliable speaker-sex differences in pitch measures. Two main factors are considered: the use of a perceptual scale for pitch and the nature of the tasks used to collect the speech data. (Author/VWL)

Two partly overlapping frequency glides can be perceived as consisting of a long pitch trajectory accompanied by a short tone in the temporal middle. It was found that the appearance of this middle tone could not be related to peripheral processes concerned with spectral splatter or combination tones that could have emerged during the overlap of…

Several descriptions of the transition from single to multiword utterances use prosody as an important diagnostic criterion. For example, in contrast to successive single-word utterances, [lsquo ]real[rsquo ] two-word utterances are supposed to be characterized by a unifying intonation contour and a lack of an intervening pause. Research on the…