creators_name: Ramus, Franck
creators_name: Nespor, Marina
creators_name: Mehler, Jacques
editors_name: Mehler, Jacques
type: journalp
datestamp: 2000-07-17
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:21
metadata_visibility: show
title: Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal
ispublished: pub
subjects: dev-psy
subjects: ling-learn
subjects: ling-phono
subjects: psy-ling
full_text_status: public
keywords: speech rhythm, phonetics, consonant, vowel, language discrimination, phonological bootstrapping, speech segmentation, syllable structure, language acquisition
abstract: Spoken languages have been classified by linguists according to their rhythmic properties, and psycholinguists have relied on this classification to account for infants’ capacity to discriminate languages. Although researchers have measured many speech signal properties, they have failed to identify reliable acoustic characteristics for language classes. This paper presents instrumental measurements based on a consonant/vowel segmentation for eight languages. The measurements suggest that intuitive rhythm types reflect specific phonological properties, which in turn are signaled by the acoustic/phonetic properties of speech. The data support the notion of rhythm classes and also allow the simulation of infant language discrimination, consistent with the hypothesis that newborns rely on a coarse segmentation of speech. A hypothesis is proposed regarding the role of rhythm perception in language acquisition.
date: 1999
date_type: published
publication: Cognition
volume: 73
number: 3
publisher: Elsevier Science
pagerange: 265-292
refereed: TRUE
citation:   Ramus, Franck and Nespor, Marina and Mehler, Jacques  (1999) Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal.  [Journal (Paginated)]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/869/3/rhythm98.pdf