This dissertation studies the neural basis of song, a universal human behavior. The relationship of words and melodies in the perception of song at phonological, semantic, melodic, and rhythmic levels of processing was investigated using the fine temporal resolution of Electroencephalography (EEG). The observations reported here may shed light on a ubiquitous human experience and also inform the discussion of whether language and music share neural resources or recruit domain-specific neural mechanisms. Experiment 1 was designed to determine whether words and melody in song are processed interactively or independently. Participants listened to sung words in which the melodies and/or the words were similar or different, and performed a same/different task while attending to the linguistic and musical dimensions in separate blocks of trials. Event-Related Potentials and behavioral data converged in showing interactive processing between the linguistic and musical dimensions of sung words, regardless of the direction of attention. In particular, the N400 component, a well-established marker of semantic processing, was modulated by musical melody. The observation that variations in musical features affect lexico-semantic processing in sung language was a novel finding with implications for shared neural resources between language and music. Experiment 2 was designed to explore the idea that well-aligned text-settings, in which the strong syllables occur on strong beats, capture listeners' attention and help them understand song lyrics. EEG was recorded while participants listened to sung sentences whose linguistic stress patterns were well-aligned, misaligned, or had variable alignment with the musical meter, and performed a lexical decision task on subsequently presented visual targets. / Results showed that induced beta and evoked gamma power were modulated differently for well-aligned and misaligned syllables, and that task performance was adversely affected when visual targets followed misaligned and varied sentences. These findings suggest that alignment of linguistic stress and musical meter in song enhance beat tracking and linguistic segmentation by entraining periodic fluctuations in high frequency brain activity to the stimuli. A series of follow-up studies has been outlined to further investigate the relationship between rhythmic attending in speech and music, and the influence of metrical alignment in songs on childhood language acquisition. / by Reyna Leigh Gordon. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Li Yu Jia. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1. --- TTS Technology --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2. --- Prosody --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.1. --- What is Prosody --- p.2 / Chapter 1.2.2. --- Prosody from Different Perspectives --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2.3. --- Acoustical Parameters of Prosody --- p.3 / Chapter 1.2.4. --- Prosody in TTS --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2.4.1 --- Analysis --- p.5 / Chapter 1.2.4.2 --- Modeling --- p.6 / Chapter 1.2.4.3 --- Evaluation --- p.6 / Chapter 1.3. --- Thesis Objectives --- p.7 / Chapter 1.4. --- Thesis Outline --- p.7 / Reference --- p.8 / Chapter Chapter 2 --- Cantonese --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1. --- The Cantonese Dialect --- p.9 / Chapter 2.1.1. --- Phonology --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1.1.1 --- Initial --- p.11 / Chapter 2.1.1.2 --- Final --- p.12 / Chapter 2.1.1.3 --- Tone --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2. --- Phonological Constraints --- p.14 / Chapter 2.2. --- Tones in Cantonese --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2.1. --- Tone System --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2.2. --- Linguistic Significance --- p.18 / Chapter 2.2.3. --- Acoustical Realization --- p.18 / Chapter 2.3. --- Prosodic Variation in Continuous Cantonese Speech --- p.20 / Chapter 2.4. --- Cantonese Speech Corpus - CUProsody --- p.21 / Reference --- p.23 / Chapter Chapter 3 --- F0 Normalization --- p.25 / Chapter 3.1. --- F0 in Speech Production --- p.25 / Chapter 3.2. --- F0 Extraction --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3. --- Duration-normalized Tone Contour --- p.29 / Chapter 3.4. --- F0 Normalization --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.1. --- Necessity and Motivation --- p.30 / Chapter 3.4.2. --- F0 Normalization --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4.2.1 --- Methodology --- p.33 / Chapter 3.4.2.2 --- Assumptions --- p.34 / Chapter 3.4.2.3 --- Estimation of Relative Tone Ratios --- p.35 / Chapter 3.4.2.4 --- Derivation of Phrase Curve --- p.37 / Chapter 3.4.2.5 --- Normalization of Absolute FO Values --- p.39 / Chapter 3.4.3. --- Experiments and Discussion --- p.39 / Chapter 3.5. --- Conclusions --- p.44 / Reference --- p.45 / Chapter Chapter 4 --- Acoustical FO Analysis --- p.48 / Chapter 4.1. --- Methodology of FO Analysis --- p.48 / Chapter 4.1.1. --- Analysis-by-Synthesis --- p.48 / Chapter 4.1.2. --- Acoustical Analysis --- p.51 / Chapter 4.2. --- Acoustical FO Analysis for Cantonese --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.1. --- Analysis of Phrase Curves --- p.52 / Chapter 4.2.2. --- Analysis of Tone Contours --- p.55 / Chapter 4.2.2.1 --- Context-independent Single-tone Contours --- p.56 / Chapter 4.2.2.2 --- Contextual Variation --- p.58 / Chapter 4.2.2.3 --- Co-articulated Tone Contours of Disyllabic Word --- p.59 / Chapter 4.2.2.4 --- Cross-word Contours --- p.62 / Chapter 4.2.2.5 --- Phrase-initial Tone Contours --- p.65 / Chapter 4.3. --- Summary --- p.66 / Reference --- p.67 / Chapter Chapter5 --- Prosody Modeling for Cantonese Text-to-Speech --- p.70 / Chapter 5.1. --- Parametric Model and Non-parametric Model --- p.70 / Chapter 5.2. --- Cantonese Text-to-Speech: Baseline System --- p.72 / Chapter 5.2.1. --- Sub-syllable Unit --- p.72 / Chapter 5.2.2. --- Text Analysis Module --- p.73 / Chapter 5.2.3. --- Acoustical Synthesis --- p.74 / Chapter 5.2.4. --- Prosody Module --- p.74 / Chapter 5.3. --- Enhanced Prosody Model --- p.74 / Chapter 5.3.1. --- Modeling Tone Contours --- p.75 / Chapter 5.3.1.1 --- Word-level FO Contours --- p.76 / Chapter 5.3.1.2 --- Phrase-initial Tone Contours --- p.77 / Chapter 5.3.1.3 --- Tone Contours at Word Boundary --- p.78 / Chapter 5.3.2. --- Modeling Phrase Curves --- p.79 / Chapter 5.3.3. --- Generation of Continuous FO Contours --- p.81 / Chapter 5.4. --- Summary --- p.81 / Reference --- p.82 / Chapter Chapter 6 --- Performance Evaluation --- p.83 / Chapter 6.1. --- Introduction to Perceptual Test --- p.83 / Chapter 6.1.1. --- Aspects of Evaluation --- p.84 / Chapter 6.1.2. --- Methods of Judgment Test --- p.84 / Chapter 6.1.3. --- Problems in Perceptual Test --- p.85 / Chapter 6.2. --- Perceptual Tests for Cantonese TTS --- p.86 / Chapter 6.2.1. --- Intelligibility Tests --- p.86 / Chapter 6.2.1.1 --- Method --- p.86 / Chapter 6.2.1.2 --- Results --- p.88 / Chapter 6.2.1.3 --- Analysis --- p.89 / Chapter 6.2.2. --- Naturalness Tests --- p.90 / Chapter 6.2.2.1 --- Word-level --- p.90 / Chapter 6.2.2.1.1 --- Method --- p.90 / Chapter 6.2.2.1.2 --- Results --- p.91 / Chapter 6.2.3.1.3 --- Analysis --- p.91 / Chapter 6.2.2.2 --- Sentence-level --- p.92 / Chapter 6.2.2.2.1 --- Method --- p.92 / Chapter 6.2.2.2.2 --- Results --- p.93 / Chapter 6.2.2.2.3 --- Analysis --- p.94 / Chapter 6.3. --- Conclusions --- p.95 / Chapter 6.4. --- Summary --- p.95 / Reference --- p.96 / Chapter Chapter 7 --- Conclusions and Future Work --- p.97 / Chapter 7.1. --- Conclusions --- p.97 / Chapter 7.2. --- Suggested Future Work --- p.99 / Appendix --- p.100 / Appendix 1 Linear Regression --- p.100 / Appendix 2 36 Templates of Cross-word Contours --- p.101 / Appendix 3 Word List for Word-level Tests --- p.102 / Appendix 4 Syllable Occurrence in Word List of Intelligibility Test --- p.108 / Appendix 5 Wrongly Identified Word List --- p.112 / Appendix 6 Confusion Matrix --- p.115 / Appendix 7 Unintelligible Word List --- p.117 / Appendix 8 Noisy Word List --- p.119 / Appendix 9 Sentence List for Naturalness Test --- p.120

No description available.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-101). Also available in electronic version. Access restricted to campus users.

This study proposes that metrical constituents are inherently headless and stress is autosegmental. Chapter 2 argues that, since stress is the only diagnostic for the presence of a metrical head, the latter is redundant and must be eliminated from phonological theory. Further arguments for the inherent headlessness of feet are cited fl:om the theory of prosodic morphology (McCarthy and Prince 1990, Crowhurst 1991b) and from the facts of Yidinʸ stress (Dixon 1977, Crowhurst 1991a, Crowhurst and Hewitt, to appear). Next, stress is shown to exhibit the following auto segmental properties: stability (Bedouin Hijazi Arabic) , morphemic stress (Spanish, Turkish, Tagalog) and the ability to float (Mayo, Tagalog). After comparing the properties of stress with those of autosegments, it is concluded that stress is an autosegment. Assuming that feet can be either disyllabic, bimoraic or iambic (Hayes 1991), the above conclusion predicts the existence of five types of binary stressed feet. These are the left- and right-stressed syllabic foot, instantiated by Warao and Mayo, respectively, the left- and right-stressed moraic foot, instantiated by Cairene Arabic and Turkish, respectively, and the iambic foot, instantiated by Hixkaryana. The asymmetric nature of the iamb is attributed to the Weight-to-Stress Principle (Prince 1990), which allows stress to be assigned directly to heavy syllables. Furthermore, this principle predict6 all and only the attested types of unbounded stress systems. Chapter 5 argues that stressless feet and unfooted stresses are instantiated in Mayo, and the theories of Halle and Vergnaud 1987a, b and Hayes 1987, 1991 are shown to be incapable of accounting for these facts. The autosegmental theory of stress advances phonological theory in three ways. First, it eliminates most of the principles and devices which up to now have been used only to describe stress, leaving only the abstract stress autosegment which is itself subject to the principles of autosegmental theory. Second, this approach attributes many of the apparent differences between stress and tone to differences in their respective domains rather than differences in their formal properties. Third, the autosegmental theory of stress facilitates the formalization of a number of stress systems with heretofore complex analyses, including Yidinʸ, Mayo, Cairene Arabic, Turkish, Khalkha Mongolian and Tagalog.

A dichotic listening task was used to investigate the lateralization of sarcasm processing. Thirty-nine right-handed students were asked to identify which ear heard sarcastic and sincere phrases. Prosody and discourse context were simultaneously manipulated. For some trials, participants heard only the short prosodic phrases, while on other trials participants heard short vignettes prior to the phrases, which provided a context that primed either literal (sincere) or non-literal (sarcastic) interpretation. Contrary to Voyer et al. (2008), there were no differences in accuracy between the two hemispheres. However, when discourse context and prosody did not match, there was a significant right hemisphere advantage for sarcasm recognition and a left hemisphere advantage for the recognition of sincere utterances. / Department of Psychological Science

It is widely recognized that differences in both prosodic complexity and position-sensitive contrasts exist both within and across languages. In contemporary phonological theory, these differences are often attributed to differences between heads and non-heads and the asymmetries in licensing potential that exist between such positions. / In this thesis, the consequences of such differences for the second language (L2) acquisition of prosodic complexity and position-sensitive contrasts are explored. It is argued that an explanatorily adequate account of L2 syllabification must include highly-structured representations as well as a theory of licensing, which distinguishes between the licensing of a given position and the licensing of featural content in such a position. Using data drawn primarily from a number of studies that investigate the acquisition of French by native speakers of English and Mandarin, it is demonstrated that the widely-attested interlanguage (IL) syllable-structure-modification processes of deletion, epenthesis, and feature change have a common source. Specifically, all three processes result from the IL grammar's inability to license a syllable position or (some of) the featural content present in such a position in the target representation. Within Optimality theory, the framework adopted, this is formalized through the competition between Faithfulness constraints and Markedness constraints, which evaluate the wellformedness of the licensing relationships. Finally, it is argued that Prosodic Licensing and the principle of Licensing Inheritance from Harris (1997) work together to encode prosodic markedness in representation, as they create a series of head-dependent asymmetries in which heads are strong licensors vis-a-vis their dependents.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Dept. of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, 2003. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 439-476).

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brandeis University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-172).

Originally presented as the author's thesis (Ph. D.)--Brandeis University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-172).