title: Suprasegmental characteristics of speech produced during simultaneous communication by inexperienced signers.
abstract: This study investigated suprasegmental variables of syllable stress and intonation contours in contextual speech produced during simultaneous communication (SC) by inexperienced signers. Ten hearing inexperienced sign language users were recorded under SC and speech-alone (SA) conditions speaking a set of sentences containing stressed versus unstressed versions of the same syllables and a set of sentences containing interrogative versus declarative versions of the same words. Results indicated longer sentence durations for SC than SA for all speech materials. Vowel duration and fundamental frequency differences between stressed and unstressed syllables as well as intonation contour differences between declarative and interrogative sentences were essentially the same in both SC and SA conditions. The conclusion that prosodic rules were not violated by inexperienced signers in SC is consistent with previous research indicating that temporal alterations produced during SC do not involve degradation of other temporal or spectral characteristics of English speech.
authors.affiliation: National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT, New York, NY, USA. rwwncr@rit.edu
authors.forename: Robert L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Whitehead
authors.forename: Dale E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Metz
authors.forename: Erin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Girardi
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Irwin
authors.forename: Amanda
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Krigsman
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Swanson
authors.forename: Douglas
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: MacKenzie
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Schiavetti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012813:Sign Language; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors