The Perception of Lexical Stress in German: Effects of Segmental Duration and Vowel Quality in Different Prosodic Patterns

Köhler, Klaus J.

doi:10.1159/000342126

Cited by 16 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Italian listeners probably constructed frames with the slot for the longer syllable in penultimate position, corresponding to the unmarked location of lexical stress. Germans are constantly re-ranking stress correlates depending on the context and rely on the complex of F0 and duration fluctuations and spectral differences of vowels in stressed and unstressed syllables (Kohler, 2012), and therefore do not associate the stable lengthening pattern in the artificial language as a correlate of stress. Instead, they probably perceive it as a phrase-final cue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As for perceptual correlates, most studies indicate that the effect of acoustic lengthening on the perception of prominence can be easily overridden by pitch movements and vowel quality (Kohler, 2012). The perceptual distinction between prominent (both at word-and at phrase-levels) and non-prominent syllables is based on pitch fluctuations above a certain threshold, and duration plays a minor role in the perceptual domain (Fery, Hoerning, Pahaut, 2011;Isachenko & Schädlich, 1966).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The perceptual distinction between prominent (both at word-and at phrase-levels) and non-prominent syllables is based on pitch fluctuations above a certain threshold, and duration plays a minor role in the perceptual domain (Fery, Hoerning, Pahaut, 2011;Isachenko & Schädlich, 1966). Moreover, the perception of prominent syllables in German is more linked to the presence of full vowels instead of reduced vowels (Kohler, 2012), while in Italian and Spanish the importance of pitch as a perceptual correlate of lexical stress is less important, and qualitative reduction (reduction of a vowel to schwa in unstressed syllables) is almost non-existent (Bertinetto, 1980;Ortega-Llebaria & Prieto, 2011). Unlike Spanish and Italian, German exhibits phonemic opposition between long and short vowels, and therefore the length contrasts between stressed and unstressed syllables are longer than in Romance languages (stress-induced lengthening should be stronger than phonological length phonemic contrasts).…”

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“…Unlike Spanish and Italian, German exhibits phonemic opposition between long and short vowels, and therefore the length contrasts between stressed and unstressed syllables are longer than in Romance languages (stress-induced lengthening should be stronger than phonological length phonemic contrasts). This, in turn, makes German less sensitive to smaller differences in durational ratios due to stress contrasts (Kohler, 2012). Another major difference in stress phonology between German and Spanish/Italian is the most frequent location of lexical stress.…”

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Cross-linguistic differences in the use of durational cues for the segmentation of a novel language

et al. 2017

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It is widely accepted that duration can be exploited as phonological phrase final lengthening in the segmentation of a novel language, i.e., in extracting discrete constituents from continuous speech. The use of final lengthening for segmentation and its facilitatory effect has been claimed to be universal. However, lengthening in the world languages can also mark lexically stressed syllables. Stress-induced lengthening can potentially be in conflict with right edge phonological phrase boundary lengthening. Thus the processing of durational cues in segmentation can be dependent on the listener's linguistic background, e.g. on the specific correlates and unmarked location of lexical stress in the native language of the listener. We tested this prediction and found that segmentation by both German and Basque speakers is facilitated when lengthening is aligned with the word final syllable and is not affected by lengthening on either the penultimate or the antepenultimate syllables. Lengthening of the word final syllable, however, does not help Italian and Spanish speakers to segment continuous speech, and lengthening of the antepenultimate syllable impedes their performance. We have also found a facilitatory effect of penultimate lengthening on segmentation by Italians.These results confirm our hypothesis that processing of lengthening cues is not universal, and interpretation of lengthening as a phonological phrase final boundary marker in a novel language of exposure can be overridden by the phonology of lexical stress in the native language of the listener.3

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Cross-linguistic differences in the use of durational cues for the segmentation of a novel language

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“…When hearing an A note followed by a D note, the majority of people would not be able to identify the notes they are VOLUME 12, 2017 special issue animal music perception of pitch change is important. In stress-timed languages, including English and German, listeners often attend primarily to relative pitch to identify stress (e.g., Kohler, 2012). In tonal languages, such as Mandarin and Vietnamese, the direction of pitch change within a word can change its meaning (Kim et al, 2016).…”

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Preface to the Special Issue on Animal Music Perception

Hoeschele

2017

CCBR

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Pitch is a percept of sound that is based in part on fundamental frequency. Although pitch can be defined in a way that is clearly separable from other aspects of musical sounds, such as timbre, the perception of pitch is not a simple topic. Despite this, studying pitch separately from other aspects of sound has led to some interesting conclusions about how humans and other animals process acoustic signals. It turns out that pitch perception in humans is based on an assessment of pitch height, pitch chroma, relative pitch, and grouping principles. How pitch is broken down depends largely on the context. Most, if not all, of these principles appear to also be used by other species, but when and how accurately they are used varies across species and context. Studying how other animals compare to humans in their pitch abilities is partially a reevaluation of what we know about humans by considering ourselves in a biological context.

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Phonological perception by birds: budgerigars can perceive lexical stress

Hoeschele¹,

Fitch²

2016

Anim Cogn

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Metrical phonology is the perceptual “strength” in language of some syllables relative to others. The ability to perceive lexical stress is important, as it can help a listener segment speech and distinguish the meaning of words and sentences. Despite this importance, there has been little comparative work on the perception of lexical stress across species. We used a go/no-go operant paradigm to train human participants and budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to distinguish trochaic (stress-initial) from iambic (stress-final) two-syllable nonsense words. Once participants learned the task, we presented both novel nonsense words, and familiar nonsense words that had certain cues removed (e.g., pitch, duration, loudness, or vowel quality) to determine which cues were most important in stress perception. Members of both species learned the task and were then able to generalize to novel exemplars, showing categorical learning rather than rote memorization. Tests using reduced stimuli showed that humans could identify stress patterns with amplitude and pitch alone, but not with only duration or vowel quality. Budgerigars required more than one cue to be present and had trouble if vowel quality or amplitude were missing as cues. The results suggest that stress patterns in human speech can be decoded by other species. Further comparative stress-perception research with more species could help to determine what species characteristics predict this ability. In addition, tests with a variety of stimuli could help to determine how much this ability depends on general pattern learning processes versus vocalization-specific cues.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10071-016-0968-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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The Perception of Lexical Stress in German: Effects of Segmental Duration and Vowel Quality in Different Prosodic Patterns

Cited by 16 publications

References 14 publications

Cross-linguistic differences in the use of durational cues for the segmentation of a novel language

Cross-linguistic differences in the use of durational cues for the segmentation of a novel language

Preface to the Special Issue on Animal Music Perception

Phonological perception by birds: budgerigars can perceive lexical stress

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