The Phonetic Study of Rhythm in Persian

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of English Language and Linguistics, Imam Khomeini International University

2 Master of Science Department of English Language and Linguistics, Imam Khomeini International University

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the acoustic correlates of rhythm in Persian. Two groups of sentences were designed that varied as to whether stressed syllables were separated by a number of unstressed syllables (Alternate Stress condition) or were in close proximity to one another (Stress Clash condition). The acoustic parameters related to F0 as well as mean intensity and mean duration were measured in the target syllables. Results suggested that both F0 and intensity have polar distribution in the Alternate Stress condition such that poles align with stressed and valleys align with unstressed syllables. In addition, all acoustic parameters displayed statistical differences between stressed and unstressed syllables across sequences of stressed-unstressed or unstressed-stressed syllables. On the other hand, results for the Stress Clash condition indicated that differences in F0 between stressed syllables in the sequences of adjacent stressed syllables are not significant, and that variation in F0 in such sequences does not result in polar distribution. Furthermore, while in the Stress Clash condition, the intensity of the second stressed syllable was significantly larger than that of the first syllable, the results were reversed for duration, meaning that the duration of the first syllable was significantly longer than that of the second syllable. Based on these results we suggested that sentences in the Alternate Stress condition are acoustically rhythmic as the distribution of acoustic measures results in alternate poles and valleys. However, no or little rhythm is found in the Stress Clash condition since F0 is neutralized and the other two parameters, namely intensity and duration function in the opposite direction.     

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

– ابوالحسنی‌زاده، وحید و تقوی، نفیسه (1398). «بررسی و مقایسه ریتم زبان فارسی و زبان انگلیسی»، دو فصلنامه زبان و ادبیات تفسیری- تطبیقی، (1)4: 1-10.
– بی­جن­خان، محمود (1392). نظام آوایی زبان فارسی. سازمان مطالعه و تدوین کتب علوم انسانی دانشگاه‌ها (سمت)، مرکز تحقیق و توسعه علوم انسانی.
– پرمون، یدالله (1385). «یک الگوریتم عروضی برای تکیه پیش‌روی کلمه در فارسی امروز»، دومین کارگاه پژوهشی زبان فارسی و رایانه. 262-284.
– تقوی، نفیسه؛ مولودی، امیرسعید و ابوالحسنی، وحیده (1399). «بررسی همبسته‌های آکوستیکی ریتم گفتار زبان فارسی با تمرکز بر تمایزات میان گوینده»، پژوهش­های زبانشناسی، (2) 23: 27-50.
– حق شناس، علی‌محمد (1356). آواشناسی. چ 1، تهران: انتشارات آگاه.
– راسخ مهند، محمد (1383). «معرفی نظریه بهینگی و بررسی تکیه در فارسی»، مجله زبانشناسی، 19(1): 42-66.
– سامعی، حسین (1374). «تکیه فعل در زبان فارسی: بررسی مجدد»، نامه فرهنگستان، 1 (4): 21-6.
– سپنتا، ساسان (1377).  آواشناسی فیزیکی زبان فارسی، اصفهان: گلها.
– صادقی، علی اشرف (1368). «عوض شدن جای تکیه در بعضی کلمات فارسی»، مجله زبانشناسی، 6 (1): 23-28.
– صادقی، وحید (1397). ساخت نوایی زبان فارسی. سازمان مطالعه و تدوین کتب علوم انسانی دانشگاه‌ها (سمت)، مرکز تحقیق و توسعه علوم انسانی.
– طبیب‌زاده، امید (1385). «ساخت وزنی و تکیه واژه در فارسی پژوهشی بر اساس نظریه تکیه وزنی»، پژوهش‌های زبانشناسی، 1 (1): 63-78.
– Amini, Afsaneh (1997). “On Stress in Persian”, Toronto Working Papers in linguistics, 16 (1): 1-20.
– Asadi, H., Nourbakhsh, M., He, L., Pelligerino, E., & Dellwo, V. (2018). “Between-speakers rhythmic variability is not dependent on language rhythm as evidence from Persian reveals”, The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 25(2): 151-172.
– Beckman, M.  (1982). “Segment duration and the mora in Japanese”. Phonetica, 39: 113-135.
– Beckman, M. (1986). Stress and non-stress accent: Foris, Dordrecht.
– Chahal, D., & Hellmuth, S. (2014). “Comparing the intonational phonology of Lebanese and Egyptian Arabic”. In S. A. Jun (Ed.), Prosodic typology II: the phonology of intonation and phrasing, Volume 2: 365–404. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
– Chodzko, A. (1852). Grammair persane ou principes de l`iranien modern. Paris Maisonneuve and Cie.
– Chomsky, N & Halle, M (1968). The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper & Raw Publishers.
– Crystal, D (1969). Prosodic systems and intonation in English, Cambridge University Press.
– Ferguson, C.A. (1957). “Word Stress in Persian”, language, 33 (2):123-36.
– Fry, D.B. (1955). “Duration and intensity s physical correlates of linguistic stress”. J. acoust. Soc. Am. 27: 765-768
– Fry, D.B. (1958). “Experiment in the perception of stress”. Language and Speech, 1: 126-152.
– Grabe, E., & Low, E. L. (2002). “Durational variability in speech and the Rhythm Class”
– Gussenhoven, Carlos. (1984). On the Grammar and Semantics of Sentence-Accents, Foris, Dordrecht.
– Hall, T. A. and Kleinhenz, U. (1999). Studies on the Phonological Word, John Benjamins, Amsterdam/ Philadelphia.
– Halle, M. and Vergnaud, J. (1987).  An Essay on Stress, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
– Hayati, A. M. (1997). “A Contrastive analysis of English and Persian stress”. PSiCL, 32: 51-56.
– Hayes, B. (1989). “The Prosodic Hierarchy in Meter”, in P. Kiparsky and G. youmans (eds.), Rhythm and Meter, Academic Press, Orlando, 201-260.
– Hayes, B. and Lahiri, A. (1991). Bengali Intonational Phonology, NLLT 9, 47-96.
– Hosseini, A. (2014). The Phonology and Phonetics of Prosodic Prominence in Persian. PhD thesis, University of Tokyo.
– Huggins, A.W. F. (1975). “On isochrony and syntax”: in Fant, Tatham, Auditory analysis and perception of speech, pp. 455-464. Academic Press: London.
– Hyman, L.M. (2009). “How (not) to do phonological typology: the case of pitch-accent”. Language sciences, 31: 213-38.
– Hyman, L.M. (2014). “Do all languages have word accent?” In van der Hulst, H. (ed.) Word Stress: Theoretical and Typological Issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  
Hypothesis. In C. Gussenhoven & A. Warner (Eds.), Laboratory Phonology 7: 515-546.
– Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
– Kahnemuyipour, A. (2003). “Syntactic Categories and Persian Stress”. In Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21: 333-379.
– Kelber, F. and Klipphahn, N. (2006). An of secondary acoustic investigation stress in German. Arbeitsberichte Institut fur Phonetik: Kiel.
– Kenstowicz, M. (1994). Phonology in the Generative Grammar. Cambridge MA & Oxford UK: Blackwell Publishers.
– Kohler, k. (2009). “Whither speech rhythm research”? Phonetica, 66: 5-14.
– Lazard, G. (1992). A Grammar of Contemprary Persian, Mazda, Costa Mesa, California. Translated from French by Shirly Lyons.
– Lehiste, I. (1973). “Phonetic disambiguation of syntactic ambiguity”. Glossa, 7: 107-122.
– Lehiste, l. (1970). Suprasegmentals. MIT Press: Cambridge.
– Liberman, P. (1960). “Some acoustic correlates of word stress in American English”. J. acoust. Soc. Am. 32: 451-454.
– Liberman, P. (1967). Intonation, perception, and language, (MIT Press, Cambridge).
– Mahootian, Sh. (1997). Persian, Routledge, London.
– Mattys, S. L. (2004). “Stress versus co-articulation: towards an integrated approach to explicit speech segmentation”. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 30: 397-408.
– Mori, Y. Hori, T. and Erickson, D. (2014). “Acoustic Correlates of English Rhythmic pattern for American Versus Japanese Speakers”. Phonetica, 71: 84-108.
– Phillot, D. G. (1919). Higher Persian Grammar. Calcutta: The University Press.
– Pierrehumbert, J. (1980). The Phonology and Phonetics of English intonation. PhD thesis, MIT.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics