This book presents a collection of pioneering papers reflecting current methods in prosody research with a focus on Romance languages. The rapid expansion of the field of prosody research in the last decades has given rise to a proliferation of methods that has left little room for the critical assessment of these methods. The aim of this volume is to bridge this gap by embracing original contributions, in which experts in the field assess, reflect, and discuss different methods of data gathering and analysis. The book might thus be of interest to scholars and established researchers as well as to students and young academics who wish to explore the topic of prosody, an expanding and promising area of study.

This book contains a collection of cutting-edge papers on methodological aspects of prosody research. Current approaches to the gathering, treatment, and interpretation of prosodic data are discussed by experts in the field, illustrated by their own empirical research. Contributions focus on the choice and measurement of prosodic parameters, the establishment of prosodic categories, annotation structures for spoken-language data, and experimental methods for production and perception studies (including the construction of materials, modes of presentation, online vs. offline tasks, judgement scales, data processing, and statistical evaluation). The volume will serve as a handbook linking data collection and interpretation, allowing researchers in linguistics and related fields to make more informed decisions concerning their empirical work in prosody.

This book presents a collection of pioneering papers reflecting current methods in prosody research with a focus on Romance languages. The rapid expansion of the field of prosody research in the last decades has given rise to a proliferation of methods that has left little room for the critical assessment of these methods. The aim of this volume is to bridge this gap by embracing original contributions, in which experts in the field assess, reflect, and discuss different methods of data gathering and analysis. The book might thus be of interest to scholars and established researchers as well as to students and young academics who wish to explore the topic of prosody, an expanding and promising area of study. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

This handbook presents detailed accounts of current research in all aspects of language prosody, written by leading experts from different disciplines. The volume's comprehensive coverage and multidisciplinary approach will make it an invaluable resource for all researchers, students, and practitioners interested in prosody.

The volume addresses issues concerning prosody generation in speech synthesis, including prosody modeling, how we can convey para- and non-linguistic information in speech synthesis, and prosody control in speech synthesis (including prosody conversions). A high level of quality has already been achieved in speech synthesis by using selection-based methods with segments of human speech. Although the method enables synthetic speech with various voice qualities and speaking styles, it requires large speech corpora with targeted quality and style. Accordingly, speech conversion techniques are now of growing interest among researchers. HMM/GMM-based methods are widely used, but entail several major problems when viewed from the prosody perspective; prosodic features cover a wider time span than segmental features and their frame-by-frame processing is not always appropriate. The book offers a good overview of state-of-the-art studies on prosody in speech synthesis.

Spoken interaction is impossible without prosody. Intonation, pitch register, tempo, rhythm, pausing, loudness and voice quality all contribute to the spontaneous negotiation process that is everyday talk. This highly accessible introduction to the prosody and analysis of everyday conversation explains basic concepts and methods of interpretation using a wealth of examples from real-life conversations. Readers are introduced to the many conversational practices prosody plays a part in through sample analyses, all of which are available to listen to as downloadable audio files on the accompanying companion website: www.palgrave.com/analysingconversation Packed with authentic examples, practical suggestions for analysis, suggestions for further reading and a helpful glossary, this clear and comprehensive guide is essential reading for students and researchers alike.