Categories and gradience in intonation
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Brechtje Post
Abstract
The Autosegmental-Metrical framework (AM) assumes that a distinction needs to be made between linguistic phonological information (categorical) and paralinguistic phonetic information (gradient) in intonation. However, empirical evidence supporting this assumption has proved to be elusive so far. In this study we analysed whether the theoretical distinction is reflected in perceptual biases and neural activation in the brain. The results of a combined behavioural and neuroimaging study demonstrate that intonational function indeed activates different but overlapping neural networks with more widespread activation for categorical phonological stimuli, especially in middle temporal gyrus bilaterally and left supramarginal and inferior parietal areas. In contrast, for paralinguistic gradient stimuli activation is restricted to right inferior frontal gyrus. These neural differences mirror differences in response times in a listening experiment testing categorical perception for the same stimuli. These findings support a theoretical model of intonation, such as AM, in which linguistic and paralinguistic information are distinguished.
Abstract
The Autosegmental-Metrical framework (AM) assumes that a distinction needs to be made between linguistic phonological information (categorical) and paralinguistic phonetic information (gradient) in intonation. However, empirical evidence supporting this assumption has proved to be elusive so far. In this study we analysed whether the theoretical distinction is reflected in perceptual biases and neural activation in the brain. The results of a combined behavioural and neuroimaging study demonstrate that intonational function indeed activates different but overlapping neural networks with more widespread activation for categorical phonological stimuli, especially in middle temporal gyrus bilaterally and left supramarginal and inferior parietal areas. In contrast, for paralinguistic gradient stimuli activation is restricted to right inferior frontal gyrus. These neural differences mirror differences in response times in a listening experiment testing categorical perception for the same stimuli. These findings support a theoretical model of intonation, such as AM, in which linguistic and paralinguistic information are distinguished.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
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Part I First and second language acquisition
- Devil or angel in the details? 3
- Effects of Spanish use on the production of Catalan vowels by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 33
- Cues to dialectal discrimination in early infancy 55
- Phonology versus phonetics in loanword adaptations 71
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Part II Prosody
- A preliminary study of penultimate accentuation in French 93
- Sentence modality and tempo in Neapolitan Italian 109
- Glottalization at phrase boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian 125
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Part III Segments
- Acoustic analysis of syllable-final /k/ in Northern Peninsular Spanish 151
- The phonetic basis of a phonological pattern 171
- The production of rhotics in onset clusters by Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Basque bilinguals 193
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Part IV Methodology
- Secondary correlates of question signaling in Manchego Spanish 211
- Modeling prosody and rhythmic distributions in Spanish speech groups 239
- Categories and gradience in intonation 259
- Subject Index 285
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword & acknowledgments vii
- Editors’ introduction ix
-
Part I First and second language acquisition
- Devil or angel in the details? 3
- Effects of Spanish use on the production of Catalan vowels by early Spanish-Catalan bilinguals 33
- Cues to dialectal discrimination in early infancy 55
- Phonology versus phonetics in loanword adaptations 71
-
Part II Prosody
- A preliminary study of penultimate accentuation in French 93
- Sentence modality and tempo in Neapolitan Italian 109
- Glottalization at phrase boundaries in Tuscan and Roman Italian 125
-
Part III Segments
- Acoustic analysis of syllable-final /k/ in Northern Peninsular Spanish 151
- The phonetic basis of a phonological pattern 171
- The production of rhotics in onset clusters by Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-Basque bilinguals 193
-
Part IV Methodology
- Secondary correlates of question signaling in Manchego Spanish 211
- Modeling prosody and rhythmic distributions in Spanish speech groups 239
- Categories and gradience in intonation 259
- Subject Index 285
