Prosodic structure and tempo in a sonority model of articulatory dynamics

Abstract

Introduction One of the most difficult facts about speech to model is that it unfolds in time. The phonological structure of an utterance can be represented in terms of a timeless organization of categorical properties and entities – phonemes in sequence, syllables grouped into stress feet, and the like. But a phonetic representation must account for the realization of such structures as physical events. It must be able to describe, and ultimately to predict, the time course of the articulators moving and the spectrum changing. Early studies in acoustic phonetics demonstrated a plethora of influences on speech timing, with seemingly complex interactions (e.g. Klatt 1976). The measured acoust..