Synthesising meaning and processing approaches to prosody: performance matters

Abstract

Words vary in acoustic prominence; for example, repeated words tend to be reduced, while focused elements tend to be acoustically prominent. We discuss two approaches to this phenomenon. On the message-based view, acoustic choices signal the speaker's meaning or pragmatics, or are guided by syntactic structure. On the facilitation-based view, reduced forms reflect facilitation of production-processing mechanisms. We argue that message-based constraints correlate systematically with production facilitation. Moreover, we argue that discourse effects on acoustic reduction may be at least partially mediated by processing facilitation. Thus, research needs to simultaneously consider both competence (message) and performance (processing) constraints on prosody, specifically in terms of the psychological mechanisms underlying acoustic reduction. To facilitate this goal, we present preliminary processing models of message- and facilitation-based approaches and outline directions for future research.

Keywords:

• prosody
• acoustic prominence
• reference
• language production
• audience design

Notes

1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for this point.

2. Models that license possible forms (as opposed to selecting the preferred form) might be instantiated in a similar processing model, through the selection of a category of referential forms, as opposed to a single form.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: This research was partially supported by NSF [grant number BCS-0745627] to J. Arnold. D. Watson is supported by NIH [grant number R01 DC008774] and the James S. McDonnell foundation.