Volume 40, Issue 1

Certain signaling functions of the pitch of voice are remarkably similar across languages and cultures: (1) high or rising pitch to mark questions, low or falling pitch to mark nonquestions; (2) high pitch to signal politeness, low pitch to signal assertiveness; (3) in ‘sound symbolic’ vocabulary, high tone used with words connoting smallness or diminutive, low tone with words connoting largeness. These patterns can be explained by the assumption that human vocal communication exploits the ‘frequency code’, a cross-species association of high pitch vocalizations with smallness (of the vocalizer), lack of threat, and of low pitch vocalizations with the vocalizer’s largeness and threatening intent.

Experimental investigations into the reality of impressionistic rhythm categories of language (stress-timing, syllable-timing and mora-timing) have usually tested extreme models of rhythm types. A comparative study of durational characteristics in Spanish (syllable-timed) and Japanese (mora-timed) confirm the absence of a strict isochronic rhythm but yield evidence fitting a less strict hypothesis of rhythm categories.

This investigation takes as its point of departure observations on the production of French fortis versus lenis plosive consonants. In a series of perception tests the role of different parameters in the fortis versus lenis distinction found in production (e.g. duration of the pre-consonantal vowel, the consonantal closure, voicing during the closure and intensity of the consonantal release noise) was investigated. Apart from durational and intensity parameters, vowel quality differences (depending on the fortis versus lenis character of the following consonant) are also shown to play a part in phoneme identification. Furthermore it is shown that in obstruent clusters like /tp, dp/ versus /tg, dg/ not only do phonetic parameters like those mentioned above influence perception, but that also the phonemic identity of /p/ versus /g/ as fortis versus lenis contributes to the hearers’ decision about the identity of the first consonant in the cluster. Phonetic as well as contextual factors are shown to interact in a complex manner. Implications of the results for speech perception theory are discussed.

The frequencies of the first two formants of three German vowels in word context were determined by a formant tracking routine for 8 male subjects with closed head trauma. A centralized formant pattern was found to characterize vowel articulation in traumatic dysarthria. Different degrees of severity could be assessed and the process of recovery was described by the parameter ‘formant triangle area’. An interpretation in articulatory terms is given and the results are discussed in the light of articulatory models.