Analysis of Prosodic Features of Emotional Expressions in Noh Farce (“Kyohgen”) Speech according to the Degree of Emotion

We analyzed the prosodic features of “anger,” “joy,” and “sadness” expressions in Noh farce (“Kyohgen”) speech depending on the degree of the emotions. The degrees were divided into the following four categories: “neutral,” “low,” “medium” and “high.” A male Noh comedian uttered 6 words that are phonetically similar with one another five times, and the parameters of the prosodic features in the current study were speech rate and fundamental frequency. The analysis results showed the following. (1) Anger: Speech rate decreases when the speaker speaks with “anger.” Maximum fundamental frequencies increase with the increase of the degrees of anger. (2) Joy: Speech rate decreases and maximum fundamental frequencies increase when speaking with “joy.” (3) Sadness: Speech rate decrease with the increase of the degrees of sadness. No conspicuous tendency was found in maximum fundamental frequencies.