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We report on two experiments that aimed to test the hypothesis that English listeners orient to full pronunciation forms—"canonical forms"—in judging the tempo of speech that features deletions. If listeners orient to canonical forms, this should mean that the perceived tempo of speech containing deletions is highly relative to the speech's articulation rate calculated on the basis of surface phone strings. We used controlled stimuli to test this hypothesis. We created sentences with one ambiguous word form (for example, support~sport), to give half of the listeners an orthographic form that includes support and the other half an otherwise identical orthographic form with sport. In both experiments, listeners judged the tempo of the sentences, which allowed us to assess whether the difference in imposed interpretation had an impact on perceived tempo. Experiment 1 used a tempo rating task in which listeners evaluated the tempo of experimental stimuli relative to comparison stimuli, on a continuous scale. Experiment 2 used a tempo comparison task in which listeners judged whether second members of stimulus pairs were slower or faster than first members. Both experiments revealed the predicted effect of the imposed word interpretation: sentences with an imposed "schwa" interpretation for the ambiguous word form were judged faster than (the same) sentences with an imposed "no schwa" interpretation. However, in both experiments the effect was small and variables related to the experimental design had significant effects on responses. We discuss the results' implications for our understanding of speech tempo perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We present articulation rate and deletion statistics derived from a 100-speaker corpus of British English speech. • Five measures of articulation rate are strongly inter-correlated. • The measures yield similar discriminative powers as quantified through log-likelihood analysis. • We offer a replicable approach to gauging the impact of a choice between alternative measures on analysis results. Studies that quantify speech tempo on acoustic grounds typically use one of various rate measures. The availability of multiple measurement techniques yields 'researcher degrees of freedom' which call the robustness of generalisations across studies into question. However, explicit assessments of the possible impact of researchers' choices amongst the available measures are rare. In this study we attempt such an assessment by comparing the distributions of five common rate measures―canonical and surface syllable and phone rates, and CV segment rate―calculated over fluent stretches of unscripted speech produced by 100 English speakers. We assess the measures' inter-correlations across the corpus as a whole as well as in relevant data samples to simulate multiple analysis scenarios. We also report on deletion rates in our corpus, as they determine the relationship between canonical and surface rates; we assess the impact on rate figures of variable assumptions as to what constitutes deletion; and we compare the measures' discriminating powers in a forensic analysis context using Bayesian likelihood ratios. Our results suggest that in a sizeable English corpus with normal deletion rates, the five rates are closely inter-correlated and have similar discriminating powers; decisions as to the segmental make-up of canonical forms also have limited impact on distributions. Therefore, for common analytical purposes and forensic applications the choice between these measures is unlikely to substantially affect outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of the temporal organization of lexical repair in spontaneous Dutch speech. It assesses the extent to which offset-to-repair duration and repair tempo can be predicted on the basis of offset timing, reparandum tempo and measures of the informativeness of the crucial lexical items in the repair. Specifically, we address the expectations that repairs that are initiated relatively early are produced relatively fast throughout, and that relatively highly informative repairs are produced relatively slowly. For informativeness, we implement measures based on repair semantics, lexical frequency counts and cloze probabilities. Our results highlight differences between factual and linguistic error repairs, which have not been consistently distinguished in previous studies, and provide some evidence to support the notion that repairs that are initiated relatively early are produced relatively fast. They confirm that lexical frequency counts are rough measures of contextual predictability at best, and reveal very few significant effects of our informativeness measures on the temporal organization of lexical self-repair. Moreover, although we can confirm that most repairs have a repair portion that is fast relative to its reparandum, this cannot be attributed to the relative informativeness of the two portions. Our findings inform the current debate on the division of labour between inner and overt speech monitoring, and suggest that, although the influence of informativeness on speech production is extensive, it is not ubiquitous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We assess the impact of syllable and phone deletions on tempo perception. • We control canonical rate while surface rate varies, or vice versa. • Listeners orient to both canonical and surface syllable rates in judging tempo. • Listeners orient to surface but not canonical phone rates in judging tempo. • F0, intensity and stimulus duration are relevant parameters for tempo perception. Studies that quantify speech tempo tend to use one of various available rate measures. The relationship between these measures and perceived tempo as elicited through listening experiments remains poorly understood. This study furthers our understanding of the relationship between measured articulation rates and perceived speech tempo, and the impact of syllable and phone deletions on speech tempo perception. We follow previous work in using stimuli from a corpus of unscripted speech, and in sampling stimuli in distinct 'global tempo' ranges. Within our stimulus sets, the differences between canonical and surface rate measurements are directly due to syllable or phone deletions. Our results for syllable rates suggest that listeners use both canonical and surface rates to estimate speech tempo: that is, deletions do not have a consistent effect on perceived tempo. Our results for phone rates suggest that surface phone rate also influences judgements, but canonical phone rate does not. Our results also confirm previously-reported effects of f 0 and intensity on speech tempo perception, plus an effect of stimulus duration, but no effect of listeners' own tempo production tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on an investigation of instances of lexical replacement repair, in which a speaker replaces one lexical choice with another, sampled from Dutch spontaneous interaction. The study is driven by the question as to what motivates a speaker to produce a particular instance of self-repair with or without ‘prosodic marking’ — with or without notable prosodic prominence — and the notion that a close consideration of the discourse context in which the repair is embedded, and its function in that context, is paramount in addressing this question. The study explores the empirical grounds for two proposals regarding the function of prosodic marking: one in which marking is a response to the speaker's embarrassment or unease at the error or infelicity, and one in which marking is done for the listener's benefit, to highlight particularly important information. This paper describes three discourse contexts in which prosodic marking is notably common, and argues that both proposals find some support in these contexts. The analysis suggests that speakers’ decisions for or against prosodic marking are based at least on considerations of epistemic authority, precision and exaggeration, and discourse coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper reports on a study of the temporal characteristics of phonological error repair in spontaneous Dutch speech, with a focus on how the articulation rate of the correct target word production — the repair — compares to that of the preceding erroneous target word attempt — the reparandum. The study is motivated by two findings from recent independent studies: first, that self-repair is generally associated with relative temporal compression — that is, a local increase in articulation rate — following the repair initiation; second, that the timing of the repair initiation relative to the error is consequential for the prosody of the repair component. This study investigates to what extent these findings generalise to a collection of spontaneous phonological error repairs sampled from the Spoken Dutch Corpus. The study also asks how best to quantify repair timing, considers whether timing is consequential for the duration of the ‘offset-to-repair interval’, and tests for effects of lexical frequency. The results confirm that temporal compression following the repair initiation is more common than temporal expansion, and that repair timing has a significant effect on both offset-to-repair duration and repair tempo — at least in a subset of the data. A frequency effect is also observed. The results suggest that proportional measures of target word completeness provide the most informative quantifications of repair timing in modelling the overall temporal organisation of phonological error repairs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper presents a phonetic analysis of instances of self-initiated self-repair taken from a corpus of Dutch conversation, focusing on their temporal and articulatory characteristics. In particular, the paper investigates whether error repairs and appropriateness repairs, two subtypes of self-repair which differ in the degree of informational redundancy of the repair stretch, are different in terms of the phonetic relationship between reparandum and repair stretch. One might expect error repairs, whose repair stretch is more informative than that of appropriateness repairs, to be associated with local hyperarticulation in the repair stretch, while appropriateness repairs are more likely to be associated with phonetic reduction. Furthermore, the frequent presence of informationally redundant editing terms and repeated lexical items is expected to result in variation within the repair stretch along a hypo–hyper continuum. The paper reports on temporal measurements with controls for the internal structure of the repair, as well as auditory analysis and an attempt at quantifying a ‘reduction quotient’ for the stretches involved. The results show that local hyperarticulation is rare, and increased phonetic reduction in the repair stretch widespread. No significant differences between error and appropriateness repairs are observed. The findings are discussed with reference to the role of information status and pragmatic constraints in governing variation in speech production. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper explores the representation of pragmatic constraints on speech production in the framework of Usage-based Phonology. It presents an empirical account of the pragmatic function and phonetic form of a set of Dutch phrases and shows that frequency of usage, which has been a main focus of usage-based linguistic research, does not suffice to explain the observed phonetic patterns. Reference to a pragmatic level of organisation is crucial, and the remainder of the paper is concerned with accommodating this level of organisation in a usage-based representational framework. The paper outlines an account in which pragmatic constraints are categories of lexical organisation, and generalisations about the linguistic design of particular pragmatic contexts are encoded in cognitive schemas. The paper suggests that the account is broadly compatible with views on the role of pragmatics in linguistic representation put forward in the Conversation Analysis literature. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We present an analysis of the use of diagnostic labels such as seizure, attack, fit, and blackout by patients who experience seizures. While previous research on patients’ preferences for diagnostic terminology has relied on questionnaires, we assess patients’ own preferences and their responses to a doctor's use of different labels through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of doctor–patient interactions in a realistic clinical setting. We also examine whether two sub-groups of patients—those with epileptic seizures and those with (psychogenic) non-epileptic seizures—show different behaviours in this respect. Our findings suggest first that patients make fine lexical distinctions between the various diagnostic labels they use to describe their seizure experiences; secondly, that patients play an active role in the development and application of labels for their medical complaint; and thirdly, that attention to patients’ lexical choices and interactive use or avoidance of labels can be relevant for the differential diagnosis of seizures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

To increase understanding of the subjective symptomatology of seizure experiences and improve differential diagnosis by studying the seizure metaphors used by patients with (psychogenic) nonepileptic seizures (NES) and epilepsy. Twenty-one unselected patients taking part in this study were admitted for 48 h of video-EEG (electroenceophalography) observation because of uncertainty about the diagnosis. Eight were proven to have epilepsy, 13 to have psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES). During their admission, patients were interviewed by a neurologist. A linguist blinded to the medical diagnosis identified and categorized all seizure metaphors in verbatim transcripts. Between-group comparisons and logistic regression analysis were carried out. Of 382 metaphors identified, 80.8% conceptualized seizures as an agent/force, event/situation, or space/place. Most patients used metaphors from all categories, but patients with epilepsy and PNES showed preferences for different metaphoric concepts (differences p = 0.009 to p = 0.039). Patients with epilepsy preferred metaphors depicting the seizure as an agent/force or event/situation. PNES patients more often used metaphors of space/place. Logistic regression analyses predicted the diagnosis of PNES or epilepsy correctly in 85.7% of cases (based on different metaphor types in the each category) or 81.0% (based on all metaphor tokens). Patients with epilepsy and PNES have different preferences in the metaphoric conceptualization of their seizures. Epileptic seizures are described as a more external, self-directed entity than PNES, which are depicted as a state or place patients go through. The differentiating value of metaphoric conceptualizations suggests that metaphor preference could form the basis of future diagnostic questionnaires or other diagnostic tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a sketch of the life and work of J. R. Firth, the first professor of general linguistics in Great Britain and President of the Philological Society from 1954 to 1957, based on a study of existing biographical literature and commentary, Firth’s publications, and various hitherto unpublished archive materials. The article sheds new light on matters such as Firth’s entry into the fledgling field of linguistics in Britain, his relationships with colleagues such as Daniel Jones and Arthur Lloyd James, and his alleged attempts to present a book-length exposition of his views on linguistics and phonetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the linguistics career of John Rupert Firth. Circumstances that led to Firth's entry into the field of linguistic science; Reason behind the decision to accept a teaching position at the Training Class for Teachers in European Schools in Sanawar Punjab; Role of University College London professor Daniel Jones in the teaching career of Firth.

This paper presents an analysis of the realisation of postvocalic /r/ in Dutch, focussing on /r/-deletion and effects of /r/ on a preceding vowel and a following consonant. Recently, detailed phonetic studies have shown that many processes traditionally attributed to phonological rules can be accounted for at the phonetic level, in terms of variation in the temporal organisation of phonetic parameters. On the basis of data from a corpus of word pairs realised by four speakers of Standard Dutch, this paper shows that such a phonetic approach is justified in the case of /r/-deletion in Dutch, and presents an analysis in terms of articulatory gestures. It will be shown that unlike existing phonological accounts, this phonetic analysis offers an insight into the relation between /r/-deletion and the contextual effects of /r/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We test whether listeners orient to syllable complexity in judging speech tempo. • We control syllable rate but vary syllable complexity — that is, segment rate. • When phrase shapes are identical, we find no orientation to segment rate differences. • When phrase shapes vary, we find some orientation to segment rate differences. • Phrase-internal rhythm and phrase duration emerge as relevant parameters. Studies in which speech tempo is quantified commonly use either syllable or segment rate as a proxy measure of tempo. Perception studies have shown that syllable rate measurements correlate closely with elicited tempo judgements across languages. Some research suggests that segment rate is an additional, independent predictor of perceived tempo — in other words, that both syllable rate and syllable complexity matter for tempo perception. However, direct empirical evidence for this is as yet lacking. This paper reports on three experiments that test the hypothesis that when segment rate is varied on a constant syllable rate, listeners estimate utterances with higher segment rates as faster. Our results provide evidence for listeners' orientation to syllable rate in estimating tempo, and evidence for listeners' additional orientation to segment rate — that is, to syllable complexity. However, the latter orientation is only observable when stimuli are variable in duration: when presented with stimuli that are identical both in syllable rate and duration, listeners do not appear to hear stimuli with more complex syllables as faster. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study was carried out to test the suggestion that close interactional and linguistic examination of the communication between neurologists and patients during a first encounter can contribute to the differential diagnosis of epilepsy or psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. Twenty unselected patients admitted for video/EEG telemetry because of diagnostic uncertainty were included. Two linguists blinded to all medical data independently studied video recordings and transcripts of 25- to 35-minute interactions. They attempted to predict the medical diagnosis on the basis of qualitative assessments addressing 17 separate observations. They also used a diagnostic scoring aid (DSA) to convert their qualitative assessments into a simple numeric score. Using qualitative assessment, both linguists predicted 17 of 20 (85%) diagnoses (κ =0.59). With the DSA, diagnoses were predicted with a sensitivity of 85.7% (71.4%) and a specificity of 84.6% (92.3%). This blinded, prospective multirater study confirms the diagnostic value of linguistic and interactional observations in the seizure clinic setting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]