Key acoustic cues for the realization of metrical prominence in tone languages : a cross-dialect study

Abstract

Few studies have quantitatively discussed the acoustic realization of metrical prominence across tone languages. This study addresses this issue in word-level prosodic units, aiming to identify effective acoustic cues for cross-language analysis based on the realization of metrical prominence. Findings include: (1) Within-dialect analyses reveal robust acoustic cues for realizing metrically strong units: duration, pitch height, and pitch slope for both left- and right-dominant prominence, and intensity, pitch range and cumulative pitch dynamics, an often-overlooked cue, for right-dominant one; (2) Cross-dialect analyses by Boruta algorithm identify that all these six acoustic cues are significant for the classification of Chinese dialects according to their realization of metrical prominence. Linear Discriminant Analysis emphasizes duration, intensity, and cumulative pitch dynamics as key discriminators across dialects.