Phonologic representation and speech perception: The role of pause
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21814/diacritica.5052Keywords:
Pause, Prosodic boundary, Intonation, Auditory perception, Brazilian PortugueseAbstract
We investigate the perception of pauses at intonational phrase (IP) boundaries in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and address the discussion about the relation between speech production and perception. Twenty adult subjects who were native speakers of BP, with no language disorders and no hearing complaints, took part in an experimental pause identification test. We used auditory stimuli in which the IP-boundary was marked by a combination of pause and pitch variation or pitch variation only. The results are as follows: (i) when stimuli consisted of a combination of pause with pitch variation at the IP-boundary, the pauses were significantly identified; (ii) when the stimuli did not have pitch variation at IPboundaries, the pauses were not significantly identified; and (iii) when only pitch variation occurred, without pause production, the pauses were identified at the tested boundary. These results support the argument that speech perception does not entirely depend on recovering an acoustic pattern and provide evidence of the importance of phonologic representation for the perception and organization of the perceived auditory stimulus. Based on the results, we argue that pause perception results from a perceptual illusion marked by the combination of different types of linguistic information at a phonetic-acoustic and representational level.
References
André, C., Ghio, A., Cavé, C. & Teston,B.(2009).PERCEVAL:PERCeption EVALuation Auditive & Visuelle (Version 5.0.30) [Computer software]. Aix-en-Provence: Laboratoire Parole et Langage.
Beckman, M. & Pierrehumbert, J. (1986). Intonational structure in Japanese and English. Phonology Yearbook, 3, 255–310.https://doi.org/10.1017/S095267570000066X DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S095267570000066X
Boersma, P. & Weenink, D. (2005). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 4.2.28) [Computer software]. Amsterdam, NL: University of Amsterdam.
Borden, G. J., Harris, K. S. & Lawrence, J. R. (1994). Speech science primer:Physiology,acoustics and perception of speech.Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics [IBGE](2016). Anuário estatístico do Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE.
Chacon, L. &Fraga, M. (2014). Pausas na interpretação teatral: Delimitação de constituintes prosódicos. Filologia e Linguística Portuguesa, 16(1), 121–146.https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-9419.v16i1p121-146 DOI: https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2176-9419.v16i1p121-146
Duez, D. (1985). Perception of silent pauses in continuous speech. Language and Speech, 28(4), 377–389. https://doi.org/10.1177/002383098502800403 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002383098502800403
Edwards, J. & Beckman, M. E. (1988). Articulatory timing and the prosodic interpretation of syllable duration. Phonetica, 45,156–174.https://doi.org/10.1159/000261824 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1159/000261824
Fant, G. (1967). Auditory patterns of speech. In W. Wathen-Dunn (Ed.), Models for theperception of speech and visual form(pp. 111–125). Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Fernandes, F. R. (2007). Ordem, focalização e preenchimento em português: Sintaxe e prosódia(Doctoralthesis, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil).
Fowler, C. (1986). An event approach to the study of speech perception. Journal of Phonetics, 14(1), 3–28.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0095-4470(19)30607-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0095-4470(19)30607-2
Fowler, C. (1996). Listeners do hear sounds, not tongues. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 99(3), 1730–1741.https://doi.org/10.1121/1.415237 · DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/1.415237
Frota, S. (2000). Prosody and focus in European Portuguese. NewYork: GarlandPublishing.
Frota, S. (2003). The phonological status of initial peaks in European Portuguese. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 2, 133–152.https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.47 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.47
Frota, S. & Vigário, M. (2000). Aspectos de prosódia comparada: Ritmo e entoação no PE e no PB. InR. V. Castro &P. Barbosa (Eds.),Actas do XV Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística(pp. 533–555). Braga: APL.
Galantucci, B., Fowler, C. & Turvey, M.T. (2006). The motor theory of speech perception reviewed. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 13(3), 361–377. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193857 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193857
Goldstein, L. & Fowler, C. (2003). Articulatory phonology: Aphonology for public language use. In N. O. Schiller & A. Meyer (Eds.),Phonetics and phonology in language comprehension and production: Differences and similarities(pp. 159–207). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110895094.159
Gussenhoven, C. & Rietveld, A. C. M. (1992). Intonation contours, prosodic and preboundary lengthening. Journal of Phonetics, 20(3), 283–303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0095-4470(19)30636-9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0095-4470(19)30636-9
Hirst, D. & Di Cristo, A. (1998). Intonation systems: Asurvey for twenty languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ladd, R. (1996). Intonational phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Liberman, A. M., Cooper, F. S., Shankweiler, D. S. & Studdert-Kennedy, M. (1967). Perception of the speech code.PsychologicalReview, 74(6), 431–461.https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020279 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/h0020279
Liberman, A. M. & Mattingly, I. G. (1985). The motor theory of speech perception revised. Cognition, 21, 1-36.https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(85)90021-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(85)90021-6
Liberman, A. M. & Whalen, D. H. (2000). On the relation of speech to language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(5), 187–186. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01471-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(00)01471-6
Männel, C. & Friederici, A. D. (2016). Neural correlates of prosodic boundary perception in German preschoolers: If pause is present, pitch can go. Brain Research, 1632,27–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2015.12.009 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.brainres.2015.12.009
Männel, C., Schipke, C.S. & Friederici, A. D. (2013). The role of pause as a prosodic boundary marker: Language ERP studies in German 3-and 6-year-olds. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 5, 86–94.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2013.01.003 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2013.01.003
Martin, J. G. (1970). On judging pauses in spontaneous speech. Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 9(1), 75-78.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(70)80010-X DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(70)80010-X
Moraes, J. (2007). Nuclear and pre-nuclear contours in Brazilian Portuguese intonation. Workshop presented at Phonetics and Phonology in Iberia, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
Morton, J. & Broadbent D. E. (1967). Passive versus active recognition models or is homunculus really necessary?In W. Wathen-Dunn (Ed.),Models for the perception of speech and visual form(pp. 103–110). Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Nespor, M. & Vogel, I. (1986). Prosodic phonology. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.
Nespor, M. &Vogel, I. (2007). Prosodic phonology: with a new foreword. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110977790
Peters, B. (2005). Weiterführende Untersuchungen zu prosodischen Grenzen in deutscher Spontansprache[Further investigations to prosodic borders in German spontaneous language.]. InK. J.Kohler, F. Kleber&B. Peters (Eds.),Arbeitsberichte des Instituts für Phonetik und digitale Sprachverarbeitung der Universität Kiel [Work reports of the Institute for phonetics and digital speech processing of Kiel University]: ProsodicstructuresinGermanspontaneousspeech(Vol. 35, pp. 203–345).Kiel: IPDS.
Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The phonology and phonetics of English intonation.Cambridge:M.I.T. Press.
Selkirk, E. (1984). Phonology and syntax: The relation between soundand structure. Cambridge: M.I.T. Press.
Serra,C. R. (2009). Realização e percepção de fronteiras prosódicas no português do Brasil: Fala espontânea e leitura(Unpublished doctoralthesis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
Simon,A. C.& Christodoulides, G. (2016).Perception of prosodic boundaries by naïve listeners in French. Proceedings of Speech Prosody,USA,8,1158–1162. http.//doi.org/10.21437/SpeechProsody.2016-238 DOI: https://doi.org/10.21437/SpeechProsody.2016-238
Steinhauer, K., Alter, K. & Friederici, A. D. (1999). Brain potentials indicate immediate use of prosodic cues in natural speech processing. Nature Neuroscience, 2(2), 191–196.https.//doi.org/10.1038/5757 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/5757
Stevens, K. N.&Blumstein, S. E. (1978). Invariant cues for place of articulation in stop consonants. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 64(5), 1358–1368.https://doi.org/10.1121/1.382102 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/1.382102
Tenani, L. E. (2002). Domínios prosódicos no português do Brasil: Implicações para a prosódia e para a aplicação de processos fonológicos(Doctoralthesis, University of Campinas, Campinas, Brazil).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Geovana Soncin, Luciani Tenani, Larissa Berti
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
