Abstract
The findings of most studies of intonation are not generalizable because they fail to meet the minimum requirement of 10 participants (Atal 1972). The current paper applies the methodology discussed in Koffi (2023) to demonstrate how psychoacoustic modeling can be used to study intonation quantitatively. To this end, the intonation of 12 speakers of American English who produced is analyzed. Pitch/F0, sonority/intensity, and rhythmicity/duration measurements are extracted, and calculations based on Just Noticeable Difference (JND) thresholds and relative functional loads (RFL) are made. The Generalizability Theory (G-theory) is used to help discover various tendencies in intonation. The findings to be discussed are based on 1,728 measured tokens (8 words x 6 interlexical links x 3 correlates x 12 participants). The paper pioneers a psychoacoustic framework for studying intonation quantitatively.
Recommended Citation
Koffi, Ettien
(2025)
"A PSYCHOACOUSTIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE QUANTITATIVE STUDY OF INTONATION PATTERNS AND TENDENCIES,"
Linguistic Portfolios: Vol. 14, Article 3.
Available at:
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/stcloud_ling/vol14/iss1/3
