<OT> New Posting: ROA-846

[roa at ruccs.rutgers.edu]

ROA 846-0506

Dissertation: Prosodic Processes in Language and Music

Maartje Schreuder <M.J.Schreuder at rug.nl>

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=846


Abstract:
This dissertation makes a comparison of language and music.
As composer Lerdahl and linguist Jackendoff show in their
'Generative Theory of Tonal Music', these two cognitive
behaviors share aspects, such as hierarchical structure,
in which prominent elements are separated from non-prominent
elements by means of preference rules and rhythmic and phrasing
phenomena. Recent constraint-based approaches to phonology,
such as Optimality Theory, show that the similarities are
even more striking for phonological and musical analyses.


This dissertation shows that music theory may help to solve
linguistic issues with which linguistic theory alone finds
it hard to deal. Three such issues are investigated experimentall
y. The first issue is whether speech is just shortened and
compressed when people speak faster, with the same rhythmic
structure, or whether the speech rhythm changes. The second
issue is the question whether recursion can be found in
phonology. Are phrasing phenomena such as early accent placement
applied repeatedly in embedded phonological phrases? The
third issue is major and minor modality in intonation contours
of cheerful and sad speech.


One of the main findings is that listeners appear sometimes
to base their perception on auditory illusions, not always
on the sound signal as it is. Listeners hear what they expect
to hear. As in music, rhythm is perceived as more regular
than it is in reality. The results of this research confirm
the assumption that speech and music share many features.
Both are 'made of' sound, and both kinds of sound signal
are structured by the listener in a similar way.

Comments: PhD Dissertation, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. ISBN 90-367-2637-9.
Keywords: laboratory phonology, musicology, prosody, rhythm, secondary stress, early accent placement, fast speech, tempo, timing, recursion
Areas: Phonology,Phonetics
Type: PhD Dissertation

Direct link: http://roa.rutgers.edu/view.php3?roa=846