Timing studies of read prose and poetry with parallels in music - a research proposal

A research project on timing relations in prose, poetry and music is outlined. In order to gain a deeper understanding of speech prosody, a comparison will be made of timing relations in such activities as reading of poetry and music performance, where there usually is a strong and obvious rhythmic patterning of the produced sound sequences. Also there are interesting parallels to be drawn by comparing the formal notations of prose, poetry and .music. Generally, there are no simple relations between abstract notations and produced results, and notations have varied with tradition and particular needs. However, it is a challenge to tie descriptive systems closer to common human constraints in production and perception. INTRODUCTION We have recently extended our interest in speech prosody and rhythmical structures in reading to cover analogous phenomena in poetry, and also with an ambition to relate our findings to established knowledge of music structure and music performance, thus adding to the perspective of a common denominator a common code. We benefit from our close contacts with the music acoustics group at KTH (Sundberg, Fryddn, & Askenfelt, 1983). In a recent article, Carlson, Friberg, Fryddn, Granstrom, & Sundberg, (1987) compared their modelling of music performance with speech. We also rely on earlier work by Goude & Malmstrom (1968) and Goude, Malmstrijm, Edlund, & Linde (1970), who have investigated the perception of rhythm in poetry and, furthermore, the work on rhythm at Uppsala University by Bengtsson & Gabrielsson (1983). We thus have a general interest in the acoustic correlates of rhythmic performance in prose, poetry and music. Our main research objective is to model the prosodic structure of fluent speech, including individual variations of reading styles. The degree of rhythrnicality, disregarding highly emphatic reading, varies considerably in speech, and is generally perceived at a rather intuitive level. A natural variation of stress pattern and speaking rhythm is essential for good speech synthesis quality. In this paper, an outline for research will be made, as well as some cotnpariso~ls between prose, poetry, and music.