Articulatory correlates of metrical structure: Studying jaw displacement patterns

What is it about?

Rhythm is patterns of movement; linguistic (sentence) stress rhythmical patterns are articulated by varying the amount of jaw displacement per syllable, as "dictated" by hierarchical phonological rules. These rules vary according to the language,resulting in rhythmical patterns of jaw displacement peculiar to that language. Beginning second language learners often tend to carry over their first language patterns of jaw displacement, thus contributing to a "foreign accent." Salient acoustic cues of the articulatory changes are changes in F1.

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Why is it important?

Previous research on linguistic rhythm has tended to focus on durational/timing (or F0) properties of speech. This research focuses on the articulatory movement properties of language rhythm, and consequent changes in formant frequencies. This is important because (1) it is a step toward understanding how speech is organized articulatorily and (2) it may help language learners improve their second language prosody.