It is proposed that the theory of dynamical systems offers appropriate tools to model many phonological aspects of both speech production and perception. A dynamic account of speech rhythm is shown to be useful for description of both Japanese mora timing and English timing in a phrase repetition task. This orientation contrasts fundamentally with the more familiar symbolic approach to phonology, in which time is modeled only with sequentially arrayed symbols. It is proposed that an adaptive oscillator offers a useful model for perceptual entrainment (or `locking in') to the temporal patterns of speech production. This helps to explain why speech is often perceived to be more regular than experimental measurements seem to justify. Because dynamic models deal with real time, they also help us understand how languages can differ in their temporal detail---contributing to foreign accents, for example. The fact that languages differ greatly in their temporal detail suggests that these effe...

Animals and humans exhibit many kinds of behavior where the frequencies of gestures are related by small integer ratios (like 1:1, 2:1 or 3:1). We show that speakers who repeat a short phrase to a metronome have a strong tendency to place the onsets of stressed syllables at temporal harmonic fractions of the metronome cycle (like 1/2, 1/3 and 2/3). Studies of errors by early language learners also show that some metrical patterns are easier than others. All these effects support a view of meter as an abstract dynamical system on the state space of two or more oscillators. 1 Introduction It is a common observation that human speech is often rhythmically produced. One thinks of worksongs, nursery rhymes, auctioneer calls, group recitation of prayers and chants, marching songs, cheers at sport events, chants by train conductors and so forth. It is worth our time to wonder where such rhythmic performance comes from. It appears that typical speech rhythms vary from language to language, es...

The problem of speech patterns in time