Loudness predicts prominence: fundamental frequency lends little

Area of Science:

• Phonetics and Phonology
• Acoustic Speech Analysis
• Sociolinguistics

Background:

• Syllable prominence is crucial for speech intelligibility and prosodic structure.
• Traditional linguistic theories often emphasize fundamental frequency (f0) as a key correlate of prominence.
• The acoustic realization of prominence may vary across dialects and speaking styles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify the primary acoustic correlates of prominence in British and Irish English.
• To investigate the role of fundamental frequency (f0), loudness, and duration in marking prominence.
• To determine if prominence marking is consistent across different dialects and speaking styles.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a database encompassing seven British and Irish English dialects and three speaking styles.
• Development and training of machine learning classifiers on human prominence judgments.
• Evaluation of classifier performance using acoustic measures including f0, loudness, and duration within 452 ms syllable-centered windows.

Main Results:

• Fundamental frequency (f0) played a minor role in distinguishing prominent syllables.
• Loudness and duration were identified as the primary acoustic cues for marking prominence.
• The findings were consistent across all studied dialects and speaking styles, indicating a shared definition of prominence.

Conclusions:

• Contrary to common assumptions, loudness and duration are more significant acoustic correlates of prominence than f0.
• The acoustic expression of prominence is remarkably consistent across diverse English dialects and speaking styles.
• This study refines our understanding of prosodic feature realization in spoken language.