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1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262127
A relatively wide range of cross-language similarities in prosodic patterns, i.e. not only in the final fall of statements and the like, but also the treatment of compound words, the marking of phonetic integrity of underlying semantic blocks and their hierarchy may be explained if the typical prosodic configurations are hypothesised to arise from a common archetypal, biologically related (rise-fall) contour, and from a few derived contrastive (rise-nonfall) patterns, whose characteristics may be motivated on psychological and/or ethological grounds. The rise-fall contour seems to be recursively implemented on different sizes of constituents; a rise appears to be mainly associated with the notion of beginning and uncompleteness, a fall with the notion of end, and the valley (fall-rise) with the notion of disjuncture.
1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262127
AbstractA relatively wide range of cross-language similarities in prosodic patterns, i.e. not only in the final fall of statements and the like, but also the treatment of compound words, the marking of phonetic integrity of underlying semantic blocks and their hierarchy may be explained if the typical prosodic configurations are hypothesised to arise from a common archetypal, biologically related (rise-fall) contour, and from a few derived contrastive (rise-nonfall) patterns, whose characteristics may be motivated on psychological and/or ethological grounds. The rise-fall contour seems to be recursively implemented on different sizes of constituents; a rise appears to be mainly associated with the notion of beginning and uncompleteness, a fall with the notion of end, and the valley (fall-rise) with the notion of disjuncture.
1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262128pmid: 7568391
AbstractFour experimental approaches frequently used in speech perception research are discussed with respect to their impact on word recognition models and their implicit assumptions on the mental representation of speech. These approaches are (1) reaction time experiments; (2) the procedure of click localisation; (3) the method of selective adaptation, and (4) the assessment of word similarities. The results of the studies vary as a function of the experimental procedure chosen. Phonetic features, single sounds, syllables and words as entities are alternatively favoured as primary perceptual units. A critical evaluation and an attempt at integrating the data lead to the assumption that the adult speaker/listener has different kinds of mental representation of speech at his/her disposal. Depending on the focus of perception, units of different sizes are primarily focused in the recognition process. This implies that the listener is able to modify his/her temporal analysis window to a certain extent. Nonetheless, as a default case, the syllable serves as the primary perceptual unit.
1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262128pmid: 7568391
Four experimental approaches frequently used in speech perception research are discussed with respect to their impact on word recognition models and their implicit assumptions on the mental representation of speech. These approaches are (1) reaction time experiments; (2) the procedure of click localisation; (3) the method of selective adaptation, and (4) the assessment of word similarities. The results of the studies vary as a function of the experimental procedure chosen. Phonetic features, single sounds, syllables and words as entities are alternatively favoured as primary perceptual units. A critical evaluation and an attempt at integrating the data lead to the assumption that the adult speaker/listener has different kinds of mental representation of speech at his/her disposal. Depending on the focus of perception, units of different sizes are primarily focused in the recognition process. This implies that the listener is able to modify his/her temporal analysis window to a certain extent. Nonetheless, as a default case, the syllable serves as the primary perceptual unit.
1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262166
AbstractThe aim of this paper is to answer the two questions ‘What is phonetics?’ and ‘Is it a discipline in its own right?’ Because there seem to exist different answers, these questions are of some interest. Sometimes, phonetics is seen as less than a fully fledged discipline, i.e. merely a part of other disciplines. But on the other hand, it seems equally true that phonetics can be said to be more than just one single discipline, in which case we would get a whole set of ‘phonetic sciences’. Neither of those two paradoxical, or even contradictory, alternatives presents a satisfying solution. In the following we would like to show that phonetics can be called a well-defined discipline in exactly two different senses. Phonetics can be seen as one of two very specific versions of scientifically approaching what will be called thephoneticfactsofspokenlanguage. Such facts are a necessary condition for every natural speech act, because there is no speech act without observable phonetic facts. Together, these two versions of scientifically dealing with phonetic facts, a smaller and a larger one, form phonetics as a whole discipline in its own right. This contribution to the Festschrift is written in German, mainly because its title cannot be easily translated into English; for further explanations, please refer to note on p. 158.
1995 Phonetica
doi: 10.1159/000262166
The aim of this paper is to answer the two questions ‘What is phonetics?’ and ‘Is it a discipline in its own right?’ Because there seem to exist different answers, these questions are of some interest. Sometimes, phonetics is seen as less than a fully fledged discipline, i.e. merely a part of other disciplines. But on the other hand, it seems equally true that phonetics can be said to be more than just one single discipline, in which case we would get a whole set of ‘phonetic sciences’. Neither of those two paradoxical, or even contradictory, alternatives presents a satisfying solution. In the following we would like to show that phonetics can be called a well-defined discipline in exactly two different senses. Phonetics can be seen as one of two very specific versions of scientifically approaching what will be called thephoneticfactsofspokenlanguage. Such facts are a necessary condition for every natural speech act, because there is no speech act without observable phonetic facts. Together, these two versions of scientifically dealing with phonetic facts, a smaller and a larger one, form phonetics as a whole discipline in its own right. This contribution to the Festschrift is written in German, mainly because its title cannot be easily translated into English; for further explanations, please refer to note on p. 158.
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