15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15) Barcelona, Spain August 3-9, 2003

The Effect of F₀ Peak Alignment, Height and Segmental Base on Sentence Type Perception Across Languages

Veronika Makarova

Meikai University, Japan

This paper addresses the effect of F₀ peak alignment, F₀ peak height and segmental base on the perception of sentence type of 3-syllable one-word utterances by Japanese and Russian listeners. The reported study was performed with re-synthesized stimuli which differed by 14 locations (alignments) and 2 heights of F₀ peak and two segmental bases. The stimuli were produced by modifications of re-synthesized original natural speech declarative (declarative base) and interrogative (interrogative base) utterances. Sentence type identification of randomized stimuli as declarative, interrogative and exclamatory by Japanese and Russian subjects showed that pitch peak height has a strong influence on the perception of both groups of subjects, base has almost no effect, whereas F₀ peak alignment affects the perception of Russian subjects significantly more than of Japanese subjects. Alignment shifts towards the end of the accented vowel cause an increase in interrogative judgments by Russian subjects.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Makarova, Veronika (2003): "The effect of F₀ peak alignment, height and segmental base on sentence type perception across languages", In ICPhS-15, 1285-1288.