2006/12/13

Hirschberg, J. & Gregory H. (1992). The influence of pitch range, duration, amplitude and spectral features on the interpretation of the rise-fall-rise intonation contour in English. Journal of Phonetics, 20, 241–251.

Presentation: Sarah
Summary: Shelly

This study investigates the prosodic variables (duration, amplitude, pitch range and spectral characteristics) of the rise-fall-rise (L*+H L-H%) intonation contour in English. Previous study showed that the employment of L*+H L-H% usually conveys the lack of speaker commitment, especially “uncertainty” and “incredulity”, and which of the four mentioned variables plays the role of differentiating the two meanings is the main concern of this study. Subjects listened to synthesized sentences, in which the four variables have been manipulated, and they were instructed to decide whether the sentence connote “uncertainty” or “incredulity”. The results showed that pitch range is the cue for distinguishing the two interpretations: subjects tended to choose “incredulity” when the pitch range is larger, and “uncertainty” when smaller. This may have to do with one of the functions of pitch range: the speaker’s involvement, in which larger pitch ranges indicate a greater degree of involvement (incredulity in this case), and smaller indicate less (uncertainty in this case).