Prosodic Universals

Area 10 – Scienze dell'antichità, filologico-letterarie e storico-artistiche

This book deals with Speech and Language Rhythm and the problems of measuring it. What lies behind Rhythm? Are Speech Rhythm and Language Rhythm (Typology) the same thing? It is theoretically unsatisfactory not to see speech and language as related entities. So, we must assume that what we find in the structure of speech is a(n imperfect) reflection of (an ideal) language structure. Therefore, differences of rhythmic type between languages should be auditorily apparent, quantitatively demonstrable; and if rhythm is part of language, they should be relatable to phonology. Unfortunately, auditory impressions are difficult to communicate, and instrumental measures are notoriously unreliable… What is actually meant by ‘rhythm’ in different contexts is rarely specified in any precise way, though one may assume that it is primarily an auditory property. However, phonetic studies of rhythm have concentrated on measurable properties, more specifically on durational properties of speech. But, much as we use the word ‘rhythm’ when talking about the measures, we cannot be sure that what we are actually capturing is rhythmically relevant…

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