ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2014

Prosody patterns of feedback expressions in Hungarian spontaneous speech

Alexandra Markó, Mária Gósy, Tilda Neuberger

Speech communication incorporates non-verbal signals and semi-lexical vocal phenomena as well as words used as the listener’s responses to the speaker’s message. They are most common in conversation with various functions regardless of language. A specific subcategory is feedback expressions (FEs) that can be found in the listener’s production as well as in the current speaker’s speech production when reacting to the former speaker’s message. This paper reports on the temporal and intonational characteristics of four types of FEs identified in 20 interviews and conversations from the BEA Hungarian database. Altogether 262 occurrences were categorized into four discourse functions signaling ‘attention’, ‘comprehension’, ‘agreement’ and ‘other attitude’. Durations showed statistically significant differences across discourse functions. They were significantly longer in females than in males in all functions. The pitch range data revealed a statistically significant difference depending on discourse function and gender only in the case of the ‘attention’ function. The dominant frequency contour was a rise in the functions of ‘attention’ and ‘agreement’ (90%). The same contour was observed only in 75.5% of the ‘comprehension’ function. An integrated approach is proposed to analyze these phenomena in spontaneous speech.