Following earlier work [1,2,3], this study, based on a corpus of spontaneous dialogue, aims to define melisms as opposed to intonation and to specify not only their forms, but also their meanings and functions. Melisms appear to be directly related to the domain of beliefs, of subjective values and hence of their perlocutory effects. The study shows in particular how melisms, beliefs and motivations are organised in the discourse of speakers.
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Caelen-Haumont, G., 2002. Towards Naturalness or the Challenge of Subjectivity. In Keller, E., Bailly, G., Monaghan, A., Terken, J., Huckvale, M. (eds.), Improvements in Speech Synthesis. London.: John Wiley. Caelen-Haumont, G.; Bel, B., 2000. Le caractere spontane dans la parole et le chant improvises: de la structure intonative au melisme. Revue Parole, 15/16, 250-301. Caelen-Haumont, G.; Bel B., 2001. Subjectivite et emotion dans la prosodie de parole et du chant: espace, coordonnees et parametres. Actes du Colloque International Emotions, Interactions et Developpement, Grenoble, 141-147.