Listeners parse the speech signal effortlessly into words and phrases, but many questions remain about how. One classic idea is that rhythm-related auditory principles play a role, in particular, that a psycho-acoustic “iambic-trochaic law” (ITL) ensures that alternating sounds varying in intensity are perceived as recurrent binary groups with initial prominence (trochees), while alternating sounds varying in duration are perceived as binary groups with final prominence (iambs). We test the hypothesis that the ITL is in fact an indirect consequence of the parsing of speech along two in-principle orthogonal dimensions: prominence and grouping. Results from several perception experiments show that the two dimensions, prominence and grouping, are each reliably cued by both intensity and duration, while foot type is not associated with consistent cues. The ITL emerges only when one manipulates either intensity or duration in an extreme way. Overall, the results suggest that foot perception is derivative of the cognitively more basic decisions of grouping and prominence, and the notions of trochee and iamb may not play any direct role in speech parsing. A task manipulation furthermore gives new insight into how these decisions mutually inform each other.
References
1.
Abboub
, N.
, Boll-Avetisyan
, N.
, Bhatara
, A.
, Höhle
, B.
, and Nazzi
, T.
(2016
). “An exploration of rhythmic grouping of speech sequences by French- and German-learning infants
,” Front. Hum. Neurosci.
10
, 292
.2.
Abercrombie
, D.
(1964
). “A phonetician's view of verse structure
,” Linguistics
2
(6
), 5
–13
.3.
Arvaniti
, A.
(2012
). “The usefulness of metrics in the quantification of speech rhythm
,” J. Phon.
40
(3
), 351
–373
.4.
Aslin
, R.
, Saffran
, J.
, and Newport
, E.
(1998
). “Computation of conditional probability statistics by 8-month-old infants
,” Psychol. Sci.
9
, 321
–324
.5.
Beckman
, M. E.
(1986
). Stress and Non-Stress Accent
(Foris
, Dordrecht, Netherlands
).6.
Beckman
, M. E.
, and Edwards
, J.
(1990
). “Lengthenings and shortenings and the nature of prosodic constituency
,” in Papers in Laboratory Phonology I—Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech
, edited by M. E.
Beckman
and J.
Kingston
(Cambridge University Press
, Cambridge, UK
), p. 152
.7.
Bell
, A.
(1977
). “Accent placement and perception of prominence in rhythmic structures
,” in Studies in Stress and Accent
, edited by L.
Hyman
(USC
, Los Angeles, CA
), pp. 1
–13
.8.
Bhatara
, A.
, Boll-Avetisyan
, N.
, Agus
, T.
, Höhle
, B.
, and Nazzi
, T.
(2016
). “Language experience affects grouping of musical instrument sounds
,” Cogn. Sci.
40
(7
), 1816
–1830
.9.
Bhatara
, A.
, Boll-Avetisyan
, N.
, Unger
, A.
, Nazzi
, T.
, and Höhle
, B.
(2013
). “Native language affects rhythmic grouping of speech
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
134
(5
), 3828
–3843
.10.
Bion
, R. A.
, Benavides-Varela
, S.
, and Nespor
, M.
(2011
). “Acoustic markers of prominence influence infants' and adults' segmentation of speech sequences
,” Lang. Speech
54
(1
), 123
–140
.11.
Boersma
, P.
, and Weenink
, D.
(2020
). “Praat: Doing phonetics by computer (version 6.1.16) [computer program]
,” http://www.praat.org (Last viewed January 31, 2020).12.
Bögel
, T.
(2020
). “Rhythmic phrasing of prosodic words: A diachronic perspective from Old English, supported by experimental evidence from German
,” in Proceedings of NELS 50
, October 25–27, Cambridge, MA
.13.
Boll-Avetisyan
, N.
, Bhatara
, A.
, Unger
, A.
, Nazzi
, T.
, and Höhle
, B.
(2016
). “Effects of experience with L2 and music on rhythmic grouping by French listeners
,” Bilingualism
19
(5
), 971
–986
.14.
Boll-Avetisyan
, N.
, Bhatara
, A.
, Unger
, A.
, Nazzi
, T.
, and Höhle
, B.
(2020
). “Rhythmic grouping biases in simultaneous bilinguals
,” Bilingualism
23
(5
), 1070
–1081
.15.
Bolton
, T. L.
(1894
). “Rhythm
,” Am. J. Psychol.
6
(2
), 145
–238
.16.
Bregman
, A. S.
, and Campbell
, J.
(1971
). “Primary auditory stream segregation and perception of order in rapid sequences of tones
,” J. Exp. Psychol.
89
(2
), 244
–249
.17.
Bürkner
, P.-C.
(2018
). “Advanced Bayesian multilevel modeling with the R package brms
,” R J.
10
(1
), 395
–411
.18.
Bürkner
, P.-C.
, and Charpentier
, E.
(2020
). “Modelling monotonic effects of ordinal predictors in Bayesian regression models
,” Br. J. Math. Stat. Psychol.
73
(3
), 420
–451
.19.
Chrabaszcz
, A.
, Winn
, M.
, Lin
, C. Y.
, and Idsardi
, W. J.
(2014
). “Acoustic cues to perception of word stress by English, Mandarin, and Russian speakers
,” J. Speech. Lang. Hear. Res.
57
(4
), 1468
–1479
.20.
Crowhurst
, M.
(2016
). “Iambic-trochaic law effects among native speakers of Spanish and English
,” Lab. Phonol.
7
(1
), 12
–41
.21.
Crowhurst
, M.
(2020
). “The iambic/trochaic law: Nature or nurture?
,” Lang. Linguist. Compass
14
(1
), 1
–16
.22.
Crowhurst
, M.
, and Teodocio Olivares
, A.
(2014
). “Beyond the iambic-trochaic law: The joint influence of duration and intensity on the perception of rhythmic speech
,” Phonology
31
(1
), 51
–94
.23.
Cutler
, A.
, and Butterfield
, S.
(1992
). “Rhythmic cues to speech segmentation: Evidence from juncture misperception
,” J. Mem. Lang.
31
(2
), 218
–236
.24.
Cutler
, A.
, and Carter
, D.
(1987
). “The predominance of strong initial syllables in the English vocabulary
,” Comput. Speech Lang.
2
, 133
–142
.25.
Cutler
, A.
, and Norris
, D.
(1988
). “The role of strong syllables in segmentation for lexical access
,” J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform.
14
(1
), 113
–121
.26.
Dauer
, R.
(1983
). “Stress-timing and syllable-timing reanalyzed
,” J. Phon.
11
(1
), 51
–62
.27.
Davidson
, L.
(2016
). “Variability in the implementation of voicing in American English obstruents
,” J. Phon.
54
, 35
–50
.28.
De Leeuw
, J. R.
(2015
). “jsPsych: A JavaScript library for creating behavioral experiments in a Web browser
,” Behav. Res.
47
(1
), 1
–12
.29.
Fraisse
, P.
(1956
). Les Structures Rythmiques (Rhythmic Structures)
(Studia Psychologica, Publications Universitaires de Louvain
, Louvain, Belgium
).30.
Fry
, D.
(1958
). “Experiments in the perception of stress
,” Lang. Speech
1
(2
), 126
–152
.31.
Gordon
, M.
(2007
). Syllable Weight: Phonetics, Phonology, Typology
(Routledge
, New York
).32.
Gussenhoven
, C.
(2004
). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation
(Cambridge University
, Cambridge, UK
).33.
Handel
, S.
(1989
). Listening: An Introduction to the Perception of Auditory Events
(MIT
, Cambridge, MA
).34.
Hay
, J. F.
, and Diehl
, R. L.
(2007
). “Perception of rhythmic grouping: Testing the iambic/trochaic law
,” Percept. Psychophys.
69
(1
), 113
–122
.35.
Hay
, J. F.
, and Saffran
, J. R.
(2012
). “Rhythmic grouping biases constrain infant statistical learning
,” Infancy
17
(6
), 610
–641
.36.
37.
Hayes
, B.
(1995
). Metrical Stress Theory: Principles and Case Studies
(University of Chicago
, Chicago
).38.
Heffner
, C. C.
, and Slevc
, L. R.
(2015
). “Prosodic structure as a parallel to musical structure
,” Front. Psychol.
6
, 1962
.39.
Iversen
, J. R.
, Patel
, A. D.
, and Ohgushi
, K.
(2008
). “Perception of rhythmic grouping depends on auditory experience
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
124
(4
), 2263
–2271
.40.
Jakobson
, R.
, Fant
, G.
, and Halle
, M.
(1951
). Preliminaries to Speech Analysis: The Distinctive Features and Their Correlates
(MIT
, Cambridge, MA
).41.
Katz
, J.
(2022
). “Musical grouping as prosodic implementation
,” Linguist. Philos.
(published online).42.
Klatt
, D. H.
(1975
). “Vowel lengthening is syntactically determined in a connected discourse
,” J. Phon.
3
, 129
–140
.43.
Lahiri
, A.
, and Plank
, F.
(2010
). “Phonological phrasing in Germanic: The judgement of history, confirmed through experiment
,” Trans. Philol. Soc.
108
, 370
–398
.44.
45.
Lerdahl
, F.
, and Jackendoff
, R. S.
(1983
). A Generative Theory of Tonal Music
(MIT
, Cambridge, MA
).46.
Low
, E. L.
, Grabe
, E.
, and Nolan
, F.
(2000
). “Quantitative characterizations of speech rhythm: Syllable-timing in Singapore English
,” Lang. Speech
43
(4
), 377
–401
.47.
Makowski
, D.
, Ben-Shachar
, M. S.
, Chen
, S.
, and Lüdecke
, D.
(2019
). “Indices of effect existence and significance in the Bayesian framework
,” Front. Psychol.
10
, 2767
.48.
Mattys
, S. L.
, and Bortfeld
, H.
(2016
). “Speech segmentation
,” in Speech Perception and Spoken Word Recognition
, edited by G.
Gaskell
and J.
Mirkovic
(Routledge
, New York
), pp. 55
–75
.49.
Mattys
, S. L.
, Jusczyk
, P. W.
, Luce
, P. A.
, and Morgan
, J. L.
(1999
). “Phonotactic and prosodic effects on word segmentation in infants
,” Cogn. Psychol.
38
(4
), 465
–494
.50.
McElreath
, R.
(2020
). Statistical Rethinking: A Bayesian Course with Examples in R and Stan
, 2nd ed. (CRC
, Boca Raton, FL
).51.
Molnar
, M.
, Carreiras
, M.
, and Gervain
, J.
(2016
). “Language dominance shapes non-linguistic rhythmic grouping in bilinguals
,” Cognition
152
, 150
–159
.52.
Molnar
, M.
, Lallier
, M.
, and Carreiras
, M.
(2014
). “The amount of language exposure determines nonlinguistic tone grouping biases in infants from a bilingual environment
,” Lang. Learn.
64
(s2
), 45
–64
.53.
Nespor
, M.
, Shukla
, M.
, van de Vijver
, R.
, Avesani
, C.
, Schraudolf
, H.
, and Donati
, C.
(2008
). “Different phrasal prominence realizations in VO and OV languages
,” Lingue Linguaggio
7
(2
), 139
–168
.54.
Nicenboim
, B.
, Schad
, D.
, and Vasishth
, S.
(2022
). “An introduction to Bayesian data analysis for cognitive science
,” https://vasishth.github.io/bayescogsci/book/ (Last viewed July 2022).55.
Nicenboim
, B.
, and Vasishth
, S.
(2016
). “Statistical methods for linguistic research: Foundational ideas—Part II
,” Lang. Linguist. Compass
10
(11
), 591
–613
.56.
Oller
, D. K.
(1973
). “The effect of position in utterance on speech segment duration in English
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
54
(5
), 1235
–1247
.57.
Paschen
, L.
, Fuchs
, S.
, and Seifart
, F.
(2022
). “Final lengthening and vowel length in 25 languages
,” J. Phon.
94
, 101179
.58.
Patel
, A. D.
(2007
). Music, Language, and the Brain
(Oxford University
, London
).59.
Peña
, M.
, Bion
, R. A.
, and Nespor
, M.
(2011
). “How modality specific is the iambic–trochaic law? Evidence from vision
,” J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn.
37
(5
), 1199
–1208
.60.
Povel
, D.-J.
, and Okkerman
, H.
(1981
). “Accents in equitone sequences
,” Percept. Psychophys.
30
(6
), 565
–572
.61.
Ramus
, F.
, Nespor
, M.
, and Mehler
, J.
(2000
). “Correlates of linguistic rhythm in the speech signal
,” Cognition
73
(3
), 265
–292
.62.
Revithiadou
, A.
(2004
). “The iambic/trochaic law revisited
,” Leiden Pap. Linguist.
1
, 37
–62
.63.
Rice
, C.
(1992
). “Binarity and ternarity in metrical theory: Parametic extensions
,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Texas
, Austin, TX
.64.
Sievers
, E.
(1901
). Grundzüge der Phonetik: zur Einführung in Das Studium Der Lautlehre Der Indogermanischen Sprachen (Principles of Phonetics: An Introduction to the Study of Phonetics in the Indo-European Languages)
(Breitkopf & Härtel
, Leipzig, Germany
), Vol. 1.65.
Sonderegger
, M.
(2023
). Regression Modeling for Linguistic Data
(MIT
, Cambridge, MA
), in press, available at https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262045483/regression-modeling-for-linguistic-data/.66.
Sonderegger
, M.
, Stuart-Smith
, J.
, Knowles
, T.
, Macdonald
, R.
, and Rathcke
, T.
(2020
). “Structured heterogeneity in Scottish stops over the twentieth century
,” Language
96
(1
), 94
–125
.67.
Stan Development Team
(2019
). “Stan modeling language users guide and reference manual (version 2.29)
,” https://mc-stan.org (Last viewed July 2022).68.
Stan Development Team
(2021
). “RStan: The R interface to Stan
,” https://mc-stan.org/ (Last viewed July 2022).69.
Steele
, J.
(1775
). An Essay towards Establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech to Be Expressed and Perpetuated by Peculiar Symbols
(W. Bowyer and J. Nichols
, London
).70.
Sweet
, H.
(1876
). “Words, logic and grammar
,” Trans. Philol. Soc.
16
(1
), 470
–503
.71.
Turk
, A. E.
, and Shattuck-Hufnagel
, S.
(2000
). “Word-boundary-related duration patterns in English
,” J. Phon.
28
(4
), 397
–440
.72.
Vasishth
, S.
, Nicenboim
, B.
, Beckman
, M. E.
, Li
, F.
, and Kong
, E. J.
(2018
). “Bayesian data analysis in the phonetic sciences: A tutorial introduction
,” J. Phon.
71
, 147
–161
.73.
Vos
, P. G.
(1977
). “Temporal duration factors in the perception of auditory rhythmic patterns
,” Sci. Aesthetics
1
, 183
–199
.74.
Wagner
, M.
(2022
). “Two-dimensional parsing explains the iambic-trochaic law
,” Psychol. Rev.
129
(2
), 268
–288
.75.
Wagner
, M.
, Iturralde Zurita
, A.
, and Zhang
, S.
(2021
). “Parsing speech for grouping and prominence, and the typology of rhythm
,” in Proceedings of Interspeech
, pp. 2656
–2660
.76.
Wagner
, M.
, and McAuliffe
, M.
(2019
). “The effect of focus prominence on phrasing
,” J. Phon.
77
, 100930
.77.
Warren
, R. M.
, and Gregory
, R. L.
(1958
). “An auditory analogue of the visual reversible figure
,” Am. J. Psychol.
71
(3
), 612
–613
.78.
Wertheimer
, M.
(1923
). “Untersuchungen zur Lehre von der Gestalt II” (“Investigations into the doctrine of Gestalt II”)
, Psychol. Forsch.
4
(1
), 301
–350
.79.
Wightman
, C. W.
, Shattuck-Hufnagel
, S.
, Ostendorf
, M.
, and Price
, P. J.
(1992
). “Segmental durations in the vicinity of prosodic phrase boundaries
,” J. Acoust. Soc. Am.
91
, 1707
–1717
.80.
Woodrow
, H.
(1909
). A Quantitative Study of Rhythm: The Effect of Variations in Intensity, Rate and Duration
(Science
, New York
), pp. 1
–66
.81.
Woods
, K. J.
, Siegel
, M. H.
, Traer
, J.
, and McDermott
, J. H.
(2017
). “Headphone screening to facilitate web-based auditory experiments
,” Atten. Percept. Psychophys.
79
(7
), 2064
–2072
.82.
Yoshida
, K. A.
, Iversen
, J. R.
, Patel
, A. D.
, Mazuka
, R.
, Nito
, H.
, Gervain
, J.
, and Werker
, J. F.
(2010
). “The development of perceptual grouping biases in infancy: A Japanese-English cross-linguistic study
,” Cognition
115
(2
), 356
–361
.© 2023 Acoustical Society of America.
2023
Acoustical Society of America
You do not currently have access to this content.