Coordination between melodic and rhythmic patterns: a dynamical model of Brazilian Portuguese prosody

• Grant number: 23/06270-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: September 01, 2023
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Plinio Almeida Barbosa
• Grantee: Gustavo de Campos Pinheiro da Silveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 24/05665-5 - Modeling the intonation of narrow focus in Brazilian Portuguese, BE.EP.DR

Abstract

Based on the theory of dynamical systems (Barbosa, 2006; Kelso, 1995), this project proposes an integrated study of Brazilian Portuguese prosody in which rhythm and intonation are examined together. By means of computational modeling, our primary objective is to investigate how the curves of fundamental frequency and syllable duration coordinate within utterances to fulfill communicative functions. We propose expanding Barbosa's dynamical model of speech rhythm by including an intonational component - a glottal oscillator - capable of generating the melodic curve of fundamental frequency in coordination with the rhythmic curve of syllable duration, simulating the joint action of these curves in signaling prominences and prosodic boundaries in Brazilian Portuguese. To achieve this goal, a corpus consisting of recordings of read speech will be collected through experimental tasks. Statistical techniques, such as time series analysis, combined with qualitative phonetic analyses, will assist in identifying recurrent patterns of coordination between melody and rhythm in the corpus. The empirical results from these analyses will inform the development of an algorithmic system capable of generating fundamental frequency values in synchrony with syllable duration values. The model's development will also be guided by a feedback mechanism: simulations of the model at each stage of its development will be compared to the patterns observed in the corpus to evaluate its predictive capacity and to improve its performance. This project will be pioneer in conducting an in-depth analysis of the interaction between intonation and rhythm in Brazilian Portuguese and will contribute to advancing the research agenda on dynamic studies of speech prosody. (AU)