Fred Cummins and Robert F. Port. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26(2):145--171, 1998.  Home/Search   Document Details and Download   Summary   Related Articles   Check

....meter can be seen as an important organizing force in music perception (Parncutt, 1994; Handel, 1989) There is evidence to suggest that cognition in non musical domains is also guided by meter and rhythm. Speech, for example, has been shown to be rhythmical, at least in speech cycling tasks (Cummins and Port, 1998). Also, experiments with rhythmical nger wagging (Haken et al. 1985) reveal nger to nger relationships consistent with the low integer ratios found in the metrical hierarchy. One way to discover a listener s metrical interpretation of a musical segment is to ask them to nd downbeats by ....

Cummins, F. and Port, R. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26:145-171.

....are aligned, such as at beat 9. Alternately, events in the input that coincide with few levels in the hierarchy are relatively weak, such as at beat 6. non musical domains is also guided by meter and rhythm. Speech, for example, has been shown to be rhythmical, at least in speech cycling tasks (Cummins Port, 1998). Also, experiments with rhythmical nger wagging (Haken, Kelso, Bunz, 1985) reveal nger to nger relationships consistent with the low integer ratios found in the metrical hierarchy. One way to discover a listener s metrical interpretation of a musical segment is to ask them to nd downbeats ....

Cummins, F., & Port, R. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

....meter can be seen as an important organizing force in music perception (Parncutt, 1994; Handel, 1989) There is evidence to suggest that cognition in non musical domains is also guided by meter and rhythm. Speech, for example, has been shown to be rhythmical, at least in speech cycling tasks (Cummins Port, 1998). Also, experiments with rhythmical nger wagging (Haken, Kelso, Bunz, 1985) reveal nger to nger relationships consistent with the low integer ratios found in the metrical hierarchy. One way to discover a listener s metrical interpretation of a musical segment is to ask them to nd downbeats ....

Cummins, F., & Port, R. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

.... expected to be approximately the same when spoken by the same speaker under the same external conditions; cf. 3] sound onset, entrains to the articulatory structure of a speaker s speech [4] there may even be interpersonal gestural rhythm [16] Under constrained conditions, Cummins and Port [6] found a metrical foot to be a salient unit in the production of speech for native English speakers. Quasi rhythmical timing phenomena in unconstrained speech production (text reading, mostly Swedish) are reported by Fant and Kruckenberg [7] An average of interstress intervals 5 of the order ....

. F. Cummins & R.F. Port. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics 26: 145-171, 1998.

....to be potential wells. The smaller b=a becomes (i.e. the faster the rate) the shallower the wells at Sigma. This captures the increasing instability of anti phase mode in faster rates (see Figure 1a) Multiple modes of stability in speech rhythm have been exemplified in a number of studies (Cummins Port, 1998; Kaipainen Port, 1998; Tajima, 1998; Tajima Port, 1998; Tajima et al. 1999) In these studies, the speech cycling technique (Cummins Port, 1998) was adopted in which subjects repeat a phrase in time with a periodic auditory stimulus. Two lines of argument suggest this task is useful for ....

.... of anti phase mode in faster rates (see Figure 1a) Multiple modes of stability in speech rhythm have been exemplified in a number of studies (Cummins Port, 1998; Kaipainen Port, 1998; Tajima, 1998; Tajima Port, 1998; Tajima et al. 1999) In these studies, the speech cycling technique (Cummins Port, 1998) was adopted in which subjects repeat a phrase in time with a periodic auditory stimulus. Two lines of argument suggest this task is useful for investigating natural speech rhythm. One is from a common observation that repetitive speech is quite abundant in natural settings: nursery rhymes, ....

Cummins, F. & Port, R. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in english. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145--171.

.... up by the hearer (interactional synchrony) in that the body of a listener, within short latency following sound onset, entrains to the articulatory structure of a speaker s speech (Condon, 1986) there may even be interpersonal gestural rhythm (McClave, 1994) Under constrained conditions, Cummins and Port (1998) found a metrical foot to be a salient unit in the production of speech for native English speakers. Quasirhythmical timing phenomena in unconstrained speech production (text reading, mostly Swedish) are reported by Fant and Kruckenberg (1996) An average of interstress intervals 5 of the ....

Cummins, F. & R.F. Port (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

....the qualitative behavior predicted by APD theory is not valid when interactions between oscillators are confined to one pulse per superordinate period. For this reason the present model is not directly applicable, for example, to the interesting results of so called speech cycling experiments [1], in which repetitive speech is synchronized with an external pulse like signal. 4 ELABORATIONS AND APPLICATIONS We next consider briefly some ways in which the basic model can be modified to accommodate additional aspects of rhythmic variation. Effect of differing syllable types. We may wish ....

Cummins, F., R. F. Port 1998. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics 26, 145--171.

....it has proven difficult to find acoustic evidence that support these typological distinctions [3] Units such as stressed syllables or individual moras do not occur at regular time intervals. Recently, an experimental method called speech cycling has been developed to study speech rhythm [4,5]. Subjects produce a phrase repeatedly in time with a periodic auditory stimulus. When speakers repeat a phrase at a continuum of increasing speaking rates, they have been found to fall in and out of stable, quasi discrete rhythmic modes [5] In this paper, we compare the results of speech cycling ....

.... perceptual moment of occurrence , or P center, of a syllable [6] Beats were located semi automatically, using a beat extractor that takes a rectified smoothed energy profile of the formant frequency region of the speech waveform, and places a beat halfway into a local rise in this contour [4]. The program output was corrected visually. Of the eight repetitions in each trial, the first two and the last were discarded to reduce transient effects. Beats from the remaining repetitions were converted into two relative measures of timing, illustrated in Figure 1. External phase measures ....

Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. 1997. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

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Fred Cummins and Robert F. Port. Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26(2):145--171, 1998.

....lines) are located halfway through a local rise in amplitude. 2 Speech cycling An event based conception of rhythm requires the identification of punctate events, or beats. Figure 1 illustrates a procedure for locating beats in the acoustic signal. This procedure, described in detail in Cummins and Port (1997), is derived from models of P center location (Morton et al. 1976; Scott, 1993) and it places the beat close to the onset of the vowel. A metrical foot can now be given an operational definition as the interval between two beats associated with stressed syllables. Now consider the data obtained ....

....a pointwise measure, providing a single value per cycle. No continuous measurement is available, making the observation of fine detail such as the presence of critical fluctuations difficult. 3 Experiment 1: Mapping attractors in a speech cycling task A baseline experiment, reported in full in Cummins and Port (1997), was designed to look for attractive phases over a range of 0:3 OE 0:7. Note that not all phases between 0 and 1 can be examined, as some time must elapse between the phrase onset and the medial beat if speech is to be produced at all, and similarly, some time must be provided between the ....

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Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. (1997). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics. Submitted.

....Alignment Figure 1: Metrical phonology in original form # Current metrical phonology has dropped the #real time part. #Prince, 1983; Selkirk, 1984; Halle Vergnaud, 1987; Hayes, 1995# 1 1.2 Where does grid come from # Multiple periodic systems #e.g. oscillators#. # Coupled to synchronize. #Cummins Port, 1998; Tajima Port, Lab Phon 6# 4 4 pattern 4 beat Go get beer X X X X X X X Go get beer Go get beer [rest] rest] rest] X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 4 3 Go get beer Go get beer Go get beer pattern 3 beat X X X X X X X X X X X X Figure 2: Two rhythm types 2 1.3 Predictions on rhythmic ....

Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. 1998. #Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English." Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

....Figure 1: Metrical phonology in original form ffl Current metrical phonology has dropped the real time part. Prince, 1983; Selkirk, 1984; Halle Vergnaud, 1987; Hayes, 1995) 1 1.2 Where does grid come from ffl Multiple periodic systems (e.g. oscillators) ffl Coupled to synchronize. (Cummins Port, 1998; Tajima Port, Lab Phon 6) 4 4 pattern 4 beat Go get beer X X X X X X X Go get beer Go get beer [rest] rest] rest] X X X X X X X X X X X X X X 4 3 Go get beer Go get beer Go get beer pattern 3 beat X X X X X X X X X X X X Figure 2: Two rhythm types 2 1.3 Predictions on rhythmic ....

Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. 1998. "Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English." Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145-171.

....languages. The use of rhythmic speaking tasks has been mentioned before (Dauer, 1987; Fant et al. 1991) but it has rarely been fully investigated. The speech cycling paradigm was developed in close collaboration with Fred Cummins and Robert Port (Cummins, 1995, 1997; Tajima, 1997; Cummins Port, 1998; Port et al. in press) In a speech cycling task, a short text fragment is produced repeatedly in a periodic fashion. Many basic effects may be observed through nothing more complex than the mere repetition of a text fragment, but a metronome of some Background 18 kind is typically used, in ....

....cycle is divided into 3 equal parts, with talk , bout , and game on the 3 beats at phases 0, 1 3, and 2 3, respectively. Speech repetition and its effects Previous speech cycling experiments with English speakers have demonstrated that the timing of stressed syllables is highly constrained (Cummins Port, 1998; Cummins, 1997) When speakers repeated phrases such as beg for a dime containing two stressed syllables, they showed a strong tendency to place the second stressed syllable onset at phases 1 2, 1 3, and 2 3, relative to the repetition cycle. Even though subjects were signaled to place the ....

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Cummins, F. & Port, R. F. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English.

.... empirical evidence for the appropriateness of the notation is not often provided and has proven very difficult to obtain (Dauer, 1983; Lehiste, 1977) Nevertheless, recently new experimental techniques have been developed that encourage the production of speech that is clearly structured by meter (Cummins Port, 1998; Large Jones, in press; McAuley Kidd, in press; Tajima Port, 1999) An awkward difficulty is that the traditional definition of meter employs the notion of an integer. Data on both music and speech show that the perfect temporal ratios predicted by such a definition are never observed in ....

....prefer patterns similar to those it has been exposed to. The model combines mechanisms from oscillator models of the perception of periodic patterns and neural network models of learning. Initial Assumptions The model is based on several assumptions concerning the nature of cognitive meter (see Cummins Port, 1998; Port, 1998; Port, Cummins, Gasser, 1996; Tajima Port, 1999 for more discussion) We will focus on the model itself in this paper and how well it implements these assumptions and demonstrates the learning capacities that we sought. 1. Underlying the temporal patterns that make up music and ....

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Cummins, F., & Port, R. F. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26, 145--171.

....and Tuller, 1986; Browman and Goldstein, 1995) 1. 6 Speech Cycling and Beats In the past couple years, we have been exploring what we call the Speech Cycling task, where subjects repeat phrases over and over, with their timing stabilized by a simple metronome (Port, Cummins, and Gasser, 1996; Cummins and Port, 1997; Tajima, 1997) Measurements of the location of one or more prominent syllable onsets, or beats , can be made and interpreted as phase angles relative to the repetition cycle of the text fragment (Cummins and Port, 1997) The basic task can be elaborated in various ways and various kinds of text ....

.... timing stabilized by a simple metronome (Port, Cummins, and Gasser, 1996; Cummins and Port, 1997; Tajima, 1997) Measurements of the location of one or more prominent syllable onsets, or beats , can be made and interpreted as phase angles relative to the repetition cycle of the text fragment (Cummins and Port, 1997). The basic task can be elaborated in various ways and various kinds of text fragments can be cycled in any language we wish. We suspect that versions of this class of tasks will prove useful for research on many phenomena in phonetics, phonology and probably other psychological issues. The ....

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Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. (1997). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Submitted.

....which recognizes stress timed, syllabletimed and mora timed languages has repeatedly failed to find empirical support from acoustic measurements (Dauer, 1983) but no credible model has yet emerged to replace it. Evidence for strong rhythmic constraints on speech production was presented by Cummins and Port (1996, 1998), within the confines of a phrase repetition task. Beats were identified with the onset of energy in the band limited signal at the start of a stressed syllable. These beats were found to lie at points within the repetition cycle which were consistent with a simple rhythmic interpretation. ....

Cummins, F. and Port, R. F. (1998). Rhythmic constraints on stress timing in English. Journal of Phonetics, 26(2):145--171.

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