Wang, Chengxia; (2024) Timing as an information carrier in speech. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

In this thesis I investigated a number of timing related issues in speech from an information-theoretical perspective, based on the view that they arise either from communicative functions or articulatory mechanisms rather than for timing’s own sake. I first examined the widely claimed hypothesis that languages of the world are either stress-timed, syllable-timed or mora-timed, by checking for evidence of at least tendencies toward isochrony in English and Mandarin, two languages alleged to be stress-timed and syllable-timed, respectively. The results show an absence of any tendency toward isochrony of stress groups in English, but a small tendency toward both isochrony of syllables and isochrony of phrases in Mandarin. Thus, the rhythm class hypothesis is argued to be not just weak, but untenable. In addition, I showed that the isochrony difference between the two languages is likely because the high functional load of English segments prevents the use of phrase-internal duration for phrase marking in addition to final lengthening. My further examination of boundary marking in the two languages also revealed a major difference in how prosodic boundaries above the phrase level are marked: Pre-boundary lengthening stops increasing beyond break index 2 in Mandarin, yet the increase is continuous in English. But this cross-language difference is evened out when final lengthening and silent pause are combined into an index of cross-boundary temporal distance, as Mandarin was found to mainly use silent pause to mark higher boundaries beyond B2. Finally, the information-theoretical perspective also sheds light on the so-called Part of Speech (POS) effect, according to which nouns are known to be longer than verbs and function words. Results show that it is word frequency that has the most direct effect on duration, while effects of POS are likely a by-product of word frequency. The is consistent with information theory. That is, speakers may be under pressure to convey as much information as possible in a given amount of time, and this pressure would lead to each word being assigned as little time as possible. High frequency words can afford to have less time and thus less full articulation due to their predictability.

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