ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2024
ISCA Archive SpeechProsody 2024

Establishing the domain of intonation patterns: syllabic nuclei vs syllabic rimes

Michaela Svatošová, Jan Volín

Descriptions of intonation patterns are often based on the values of the fundamental frequency in vowels. In Czech, however, syllabic rimes can contain sonorous consonants and their relevance in intonation is unclear. The present study examined whether F0 contours in phrase-final syllables with different types of coda (no coda, sonorous coda, obstruent coda) are more similar in the domain of syllabic nuclei or in the domain of syllabic rimes. The material consisted of a two-hour collection of audiobook samples recorded by sixteen professional actors, providing 3756 phrase-final syllables. The contours were analysed first simply in terms of their realisational space and then in more detail with functional principal component analysis and Legendre polynomials. The results indicated that the domain relevant for the production of intonation patterns is the sonorous part of the syllabic rime, which showed comparable values of F0 range across all syllable types. Typical contours had straight shapes; however, some contours were considerably curved, which led to substantially different shapes and F0 ranges in the syllabic rimes compared to the nuclei for syllables with a sonorous coda. The present findings provide a basis for perception experiments in the domain of intonation patterns in Czech.