15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-15)Barcelona, Spain |
Previous research on Estonian has shown that the downtrends in statements and a type of yes/no questions fit the so-called 'local' model of downtrends which assumes no time-dependent effect on the height of accent peaks in an utterance. In the present paper, statements and three types of yes/no question are further studied in relation to the pre-nuclear downstep ratio. Additionally the scaling of F0 valleys in these types of utterance is investigated. The analysis reveals that two different ratios are needed for modelling the scaling of peaks in these utterances, and that the downtrend of F0 minima reflects the downtrend in the peaks as the pitch span remains constant across the utterance types. Results will be presented showing to what extent the three types of question and statements are distinguished by the overall level of top and bottom lines.
Bibliographic reference. Asu, Eva Liina (2003): "The scaling of F0 peaks and valleys in Estonian statements and questions", In ICPhS-15, 2281-2284.