Prosodic marking of self-repairs

Slip studies predominantly focus on either structural or semantic properties of the errors. Since most analyses have been based on pen-and-paper collections, i.e., on-line notes, it is quite understandable that suprasegmental of errors have remained a neglected area. The present prosodic analysis is based on acoustical measurements of 307 self-repairs. Each repair has been measured with the Praat program. In order to make the measurements psychoacoustically relevant and comparable across speakers, the changes in F0 are expressed in terms of semitones. In general, speakers repair slightly less than three quarters of the errors they commit whereas one quarter remains either totally undetected or at least without a repair. With respect to prosodic marking, it appears that the proportion of marked repairs in the present data is significantly larger than in previous studies: approximately two thirds of self-repairs are marked with remarkably higher pitch (>+3ST), and a total of 96.7 per cent with a somewhat heigthened pitch. It is concluded that alternations of fundamental frequency are utilized in marking self-initiated repairs.