---
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.'
altloc:
- http://www.ehess.fr/centres/lscp/persons/ramus/rhythm98.pdf
chapter: ~
commentary: ~
commref: ~
confdates: ~
conference: ~
confloc: ~
contact_email: ~
creators_id: []
creators_name:
- family: Ramus
given: Franck
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
- family: Nespor
given: Marina
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
- family: Mehler
given: Jacques
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
date: 1999
date_type: published
datestamp: 2000-07-17
department: ~
dir: disk0/00/00/08/69
edit_lock_since: ~
edit_lock_until: ~
edit_lock_user: ~
editors_id: []
editors_name:
- family: Mehler
given: Jacques
honourific: ''
lineage: ''
eprint_status: archive
eprintid: 869
fileinfo: /style/images/fileicons/application_pdf.png;/869/3/rhythm98.pdf
full_text_status: public
importid: ~
institution: ~
isbn: ~
ispublished: pub
issn: ~
item_issues_comment: []
item_issues_count: 0
item_issues_description: []
item_issues_id: []
item_issues_reported_by: []
item_issues_resolved_by: []
item_issues_status: []
item_issues_timestamp: []
item_issues_type: []
keywords: 'speech rhythm, phonetics, consonant, vowel, language discrimination, phonological bootstrapping, speech segmentation, syllable structure, language acquisition'
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:21
latitude: ~
longitude: ~
metadata_visibility: show
note: ~
number: 3
pagerange: 265-292
pubdom: FALSE
publication: Cognition
publisher: Elsevier Science
refereed: TRUE
referencetext: ~
relation_type: []
relation_uri: []
reportno: ~
rev_number: 12
series: ~
source: ~
status_changed: 2007-09-12 16:35:09
subjects:
- dev-psy
- ling-learn
- ling-phono
- psy-ling
succeeds: 218
suggestions: ~
sword_depositor: ~
sword_slug: ~
thesistype: ~
title: Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal
type: journalp
userid: 431
volume: 73