Eric Vatikiotis-Bateson, J.A.Scott Kelso
RHYTHM TYPE AND ARTICULATORY DYNAMICS
IN ENGLISH, FRENCH, AND JAPANESE
Abstract:In the study reported here, movement data were analyzed for archetypes of
the three most widely recognized temporal organization categories: English
for stress timing, Japanese for mora timing, and French for syllable timing.
Reiterant speech productions from the three languages were elicited and analyzed
as commensurately as possible, using the experimental methodology
employed originally by Kelso, Vatikiotis-Bateson, Saltzman, & Kay (1985)
for two speakers of English. The primary aim was to show the extent to
which simple kinematic analysis of a primary articulator (the lower lip-jaw
complex) can reveal universal and language-specific aspects of temporal organization
and prosody. For the most part, kinematic results were like those
of Kelso et al. (1985): Most of the spatiotemporal variability of the movement
behavior could be accounted for in the highly linear covariation of peak
velocity and displacement. Moreover, there were clear condition-specific correlates
of stress in English and French, of accent-related tone and mora complexity
in Japanese, and speaking rate in all three languages on displacement
and on the slope of the linear relation between peak velocity and displacement.
These results are interpreted in terms of an abstract, yet simple,
second-order system such as a linear spring-mass. By setting a small number
of underlying parameters, such a system can characterize the overall
spatiotemporal behavior of the lip-jaw system, as well as most of the specific
linguistic and performance distinctions in stress, speaking rate, and the like.