Rhythm
An interactive introduction
Dafydd Gibbon
U Bielefeld
Ak-Phon 2005-07-13
Overview
● Definitions and examples of rhythm
● Emergent Rhythm Theory (ERT)
● Timing factors in linguistics and phonetics
– Levels of patterning and isochrony
● Phonological rhythm theories
– Metrical Phonology, Prosodic Hierarchy
● Phonetic rhythm theories
– Patterns: Pike, Abercrombie, Jassem
– Global isochrony: Isard, Roach, ...
– Global pattern ratio: Ramus, ...
– Local linear: Low & Grabe
● A new strategy
– Measuring rhythm types
– Inducing hierarchical temporal patterns
Presentation strategy
● Lecture: introduction to
– basic concepts
– approaches
● Discussion: intuitive explicanda for “rhythm”
● Method practice:
– temporal annotation (with annotation software)
● selection of units – C/V clusters, syllables, feet
– manual analysis of annotation (with spreadsheet)
● mean durations
● variance & standard deviation of durations
● Low & Grabe PVI (pairwise variability index)
● Gibbon TPA (temporal periodicity analysis)
Rhythm definitions & examples
Etymology: Middle French & Latin; Middle French rhythme, from Latin
rhythmus, from Greek rhythmos, probably from rhein to flow -- more at
STREAM
1 a : an ordered recurrent alternation of strong and weak elements in the
flow of sound and silence in speech b : a particular example or form of
rhythm <iambic rhythm>
2 a : the aspect of music comprising all the elements (as accent, meter,
and tempo) that relate to forward movement b : a characteristic
rhythmic pattern <rumba rhythm>; also : 1METER 2 c : the group of
instruments in a band supplying the rhythm -- called also rhythm
section
3 a : movement or fluctuation marked by the regular recurrence or natural
flow of related elements b : the repetition in a literary work of phrase,
incident, character type, or symbol
4 : a regularly recurrent quantitative change in a variable biological
process <a circadian rhythm> -- compare BIORHYTHM
5 : the effect created by the elements in a play, movie, or novel that relate
to the temporal development of the action
Rhythm definitions & examples
Rhythm in general...
Rhythms in particular:
– Acoustic
– Visual
– Patterns:
● trochaic
● iambic
● dactylic
● anapaestic
– Complex:
● beat
● heterodyne
● moiré
What makes rhythm?
● Basic position:
– rhythm is emergent i.e. a function of many different factors, e.g.
● cognitive expectations
● “biological clocks”
● Temporal properties of prosodic hierarchies - cf. Tillmann's
– A prosody: timing level of phonemes
– B prosody: timing level of syllables, words
– C prosody: timing level of phrases
● Articulatory constraints (elastic tissues, weight of bones, ...)
● Acoustic patterns
● Integrative powers of the ear and hearing
● Pragmatic position:
– this is all too complicated
– let's concentrate first on what we can measure, for heuristic
reasons (without rejecting other dimensions)
Emergent complex rhythms (1)
Rhythm 1:
Rhythm 2:
Rhythm 3:
Emergent complex rhythms (2)
Rhythm 1:
Rhythm 2:
Rhythm 3:
Timing factors in speech
● Phrase:
– Speech tempo
– Parenthetic speech
– Emphatic accent
– Focal / contrastive accent
– Phrasal accent (realisation of sentence stress)
● Word:
– Accent (realisation of word stress)
– Word stress
– Foot: speech tempo
– Syllable: strong/long – weak/short syllables
– C & V contrastive phoneme durations
– Allophonic duration variation (e.g. Eng. V[+st])
Phonological rhythm theories
● Syllable vs. Stress/Foot timing
– Pike
– Abercrombie
● Stratified hierarchies:
– Jassem
– Prosodic Hierarchies
● Selkirk, Hayes
● Campbell
● General hierarchies:
– Metrical Phonology
Phonetic rhythm theories
● Global:
– variance, standard deviation (isochrony):
● Isard
● Roach
– peak-trough ratio:
● Ramus
– Periodicity Analysis
● Gibbon
● Local:
– peak-trough alternation ratio:
● Low, Grabe & Nolan (PVI)
● Gibbon & Gut (RR)
● Gibbon (Time Tree Induction)
● Dynamic:
– Barbosa, Cummins, Wachsmuth, ...
Practical: annotation & analysis
● Choose a short speech file
● Annotate the following tiers with Praat:
– Phonemes
– Syllable
– Feet
● The following can be done automatically, but...
– Enter the time-stamps for each tier into separate worksheets of a
spreadsheet programm (OpenOffice Calc, Excel)
– For each tier:
● calculate average length (AL) of units
● calculate standard deviation (SD) of units
● normalise by dividing SD/AL (0 = isochrony)
Average length and speech rate
Phon Syll Foot
80 250 473
170 100 420
40 123
60 300
60 120
63
110
140
50
70
AL 84,3 178,6 446,5
Rate 11,86 5,6 2,24
AL: Average Length (in msec)
Rate: 1000 / AL (in sec)
SD: Standard Deviation
NDI: an isochrony measure
Phon Syll Foot
80 250 473
170 100 420
40 123
60 300
60 120
63
110
140
50
70
AL 84,3 178,6 446,5
SD 42,3 90,19 37,48
NDI 0,5 0,51 0,08
SD: Standard Deviation
AL: Average Length
NDI=SD/AL: Normalised Deviation Index (>= 0)
Perfect isochrony: NDI = 0
PVI: a binary alternation measure
Phon Δdur |Δdur| AVG |Δdur|/AVG Syll Δdur |Δdur| AVG |Δdur|/AVG Foot Δdur |Δdur| AVG |Δdur|/AVG
80,00 -90,00 90,00 125,00 0,72 250,00 150,00 150,00 175,00 0,86 473,00 53,00 53,00 446,50 0,12
170,00 130,00 130,00 105,00 1,24 100,00 -23,00 23,00 111,50 0,21 420,00 420,00 420,00 420,00 1,00
40,00 -20,00 20,00 50,00 0,40 123,00 -177,00 177,00 211,50 0,84
60,00 0,00 0,00 60,00 0,00 300,00 180,00 180,00 210,00 0,86
60,00 -3,00 3,00 61,50 0,05 120,00
63,00 -47,00 47,00 86,50 0,54
110,00 -30,00 30,00 125,00 0,24
140,00 90,00 90,00 95,00 0,95
50,00 -20,00 20,00 60,00 0,33
70,00
AVG 0,50 0,69 0,56
PVI 49,68 68,94 55,94
PVI:
100 * AVERAGE( ABSOLUTE(diffi - diffi+1) / AVERAGE(diffi,diffi+1))
Perspective...
● Implementation and further development dynamic approaches:
– Barbosa
– Cummins
– Wachsmuth
● Development of rhythm typology measures:
– unary (cf. syllable timing)
– binary: iambic, trochaic
– ternary: dactylic, anapaestic
– other ...
● Relation of phonetic patterns to patterns of
– phonology
– morphology
– phrasal syntax
– discourse
