This study investigates F0 declination in broadcast news speech in English and Mandarin Chinese. The results demonstrate a strong relationship between utterance length and declination slope. Shorter utterances have steeper declination even after excluding the initial rising and final lowering effects. Both topline and baseline show declination, but they are independent. The topline and baseline have different patterns in Mandarin Chinese, whereas in English their patterns are similar. Mandarin Chinese has more and steeper declination than English, as well as wider pitch range and more F0 fluctuations.
Index Terms: declination, F0, regression, convex-hull