The Relative Cueing Power of F0 and Duration in German Prominence Perception
Abstract
Previous studies showed for German and other (West) Germanic language, including English, that perceived syllable prominence is primarily controlled by changes in duration and F0, with the latter cue being more powerful than the former. Our study is an initial approach to develop this prominence hierarchy further by putting numbers on the interplay of duration and F0. German listeners indirectly judged through lexical identification the relative prominence levels of two neighboring syllables. Results show that an increase in F0 of between 0.49 and 0.76 st is required to outweigh the prominence effect of a 30% increase in duration of a neighboring syllable. These numbers are fairly stable across a large range of absolute F0 and duration levels and hence useful in speech technology.