A Study on Prosody and Discourse Structure in Cooperative Dialogues
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Shin’ya Nakajima
and James F. Allen
Abstract
This article describes how well prosodic information correlates with the topic structure of discourse. To investigate this correlation systematically, we first introduce the notion of utteranceunit, which can be viewed as the basic unit in conversations. We then define four topic boundary classes: topicshift, topiccontinuation, elaboration, and speech-actcontinuation. The prosodic parameters – onset fundamental frequency (F0), final F0, and peak F0 ratio – are measured at these topic boundaries to show how these prosodic parameters change with the topic structure. Finally, we discuss discourse structure identification via the prosodic parameters.
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© 1993 S. Karger AG, Basel
Articles in the same Issue
- Special Section
- Contents, Vol. 50, No. 3, 1993
- Editorial Note
- Paper
- The Phonetic Interpretation of Tone in Igbo
- Effects of Time Pressure on the Phonetic Realization of the Dutch Accent-Lending Pitch Rise and Fall
- Intonation of Clause-Internal Filled Pauses
- Beyond Sentence Prosody: Paragraph Intonation in Dutch
- The Prosody of Information Units in Spontaneous Monologue
- A Study on Prosody and Discourse Structure in Cooperative Dialogues
- Further Section
- Publications Received for Review
Articles in the same Issue
- Special Section
- Contents, Vol. 50, No. 3, 1993
- Editorial Note
- Paper
- The Phonetic Interpretation of Tone in Igbo
- Effects of Time Pressure on the Phonetic Realization of the Dutch Accent-Lending Pitch Rise and Fall
- Intonation of Clause-Internal Filled Pauses
- Beyond Sentence Prosody: Paragraph Intonation in Dutch
- The Prosody of Information Units in Spontaneous Monologue
- A Study on Prosody and Discourse Structure in Cooperative Dialogues
- Further Section
- Publications Received for Review