Gradiency and categoricity in prosodic boundary production and perception

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2007-11, Vol.122 (5_Supplement), p.3020-3021
• Main Authors: Krivokapic, Jelena, Ananthakrishnan, Sankaranarayanan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.2942798

A study investigating whether the production and perception of prosodic boundaries is categorical or gradient is presented. Most theories assume a small set of prosodic categories which are marked by categorically different prosodic boundaries (e.g., Beckman & Pierrehumbert 1986 Phonology Yearbook, 3, 255–309, Nespor & Vogel 1986 Prosodic Phonology), while an alternative view suggests the possibility of gradiently varying prosodic boundaries (e.g., Byrd & Saltzman, 2003 J. of Phonetics, 31, 149–180). The first part of this study is an articulatory study investigating the production of twenty-four prosodic junctures ranging from no boundary to very strong boundary. In the second part of the study listeners evaluate the perception of these same boundaries. Two evaluations (histograms and fitting mixture distributions) were conducted on both the production and on the perception data. The production of prosodic boundaries was found to be categorical, showing a large (IP) and a predominantly small prosodic boundary. The perception of prosodic boundaries showed that listeners perceive two distinct categories, but also that the data is better explained if more prosodic categories, up to 8, are assumed. [Supported by NIH.]