Speech Prosody Studies Group

UNDER CONSTRUCTION!!

This page will migrate to www.experimentalprosodybrazil.org, when will be kindly hosted by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo*

The group members in alphabetical order. (Academic status according to the British educational system.)

Each member is responsible for the information given below..
Pablo ARANTES
Postgraduate Student/University of Campinas
E-mail: pabloarantes@gmail.com

Theme: Secondary stress in Brazilian Portuguese
Master's thesis title: Characterisation and simulation of secondary stress dynamics in Brazilian Portuguese as related to speech rhtyhm production and perception
Plínio A. BARBOSA (Back to home /  Retour au début de page)
Senior Lecturer/University of Campinas
E-mail: plinio@iel.unicamp.br
Ana Maria CHIRELLI
Postgraduate Student/University of Campinas & Assistant Professor/Catholic University of Campinas
E-mail: chirelli@uol.com.br

Theme: CV vs VC coarticulation in Brazilian Portuguese.
Aglael GAMA ROSSI
Lecturer/Catholic University of São Paulo
E-mail: gamarossi@uol.com.br
Luciana LUCENTE
Post-Graduate Student/University of Campinas
E-mail: luciana_lucente@yahoo.com.br

Theme: Intonational transcription of Brazilian Portuguese
Title of work under progress: Towards a proposal of intonational transcription for Brazilian Portuguese (BP-ToBI or TOBPI?)

Abstract:
The project presents a pilot study whose aim is to evaluate two prosodic transcription systems of speech, based on phonetic-acoustic analyses of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). The notational systems that will be evaluated are: ToBI (Tone and Break Indices), with a phonetic base, and INTSINT (International System), with a phonetic-phonological base. The first system, initially developed for a prosodic notation of American English, has been used and adapted to several languages. In this way, we intend to evaluate the boundaries of that system, the kind of knowledge of the Entonational Fonology of BP that it supposes and the consistency among transcriptors. The second system, the INTSINT, will be evaluated from the results of the automatic transcription for the program provided and developed by Daniel Hirst, researcher of the Provence University. The presentation of the two transcriptions will be made simultaneously, from the use of software Praat. The aim of this work is to test advantages, disadvantages and complementary aspects of each system, from examples of spontaneous speech, to propose an intonational transcription system for BP.

Sandra MADUREIRA
Reader/Catholic University of São Paulo
E-mail: madusali@pucsp.br
Ana Cristina Fricke MATTE
Lecturer/Federal University of Minas Gerais
E-mail: made.ana@gmail.com

Theme: Emotional speech analysis and modelling
Alexsandro R. MEIRELES
Postgraduate Student/University of Campinas
Visiting scholar at the University of Southern California(USC)
E-mail: meirelesalex@gmail.com
Personal web page: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~meireles/

Theme: Rhythmic structuring variability under speech rate increase
PhD's thesis title: Analysis and modeling of speech rhythmic patterns variability under a dynamical systems perspective.

  Scientific interests: Abstract: This project deals with the modeling and description of the prosodic processes related to speech rate variation in Brazilian Portuguese (BP). A pilot study under the way investigates the interaction between the syllabic and phrase stress oscillators of the model of speech rhythm production to build the utterance’s stress groups from a descriptive study of a corpus recorded at three speech rates by four speakers. The first results indicate that: 1) at fast speech, contrary to slow speech, some stress group sequences tend to isochrony, and 2) stress group duration tends to be equal for both slow and fast rates. Our research will continue with an implementation of a model for generating beats of the phrase stress oscillator as well as trying to predict where they could occur and the factors responsible for its occurrence.
Sandra MERLO
Postgraduate Student/University of Campinas
E-mail: sgmerlo@yahoo.com.br

Master's thesis title: Temporal patterns of hesitation phenomena in semi-spontaneous speech

Scientific interests: Description of speech fluency, fluency disorders, especially developmental stuttering

Leandro dos Santos SILVEIRA
Post-Graduate Student/University of Campinas
E-mail: leandro.silveira@gmail.com

Theme: Intonational organisation under stress clash in Brazlian Portuguese
Jussara M. VIEIRA
Postgraduate Student/University of Campinas
E-mail: jumevi@uol.com.br

PhD's thesis title: A study of rhythm structuring in neurologically-impaired speech

Scientific interests:

 - pathological and non-pathological rhythm speech analysis;
- prosody-syntax interface;
- prosody-emotion interface;
- relationship between physiological anatomical issues and linguistics in prosody production and perception;
- relevance of prosody issues for human comunication: from language acquisition to language use;
- speech technology.


The research aims at answering how a subject with dysarthria does to structure his/her speech rhythm to read aloud. We are investigating self-organization in terms of dynamical systems theory (Kelso, 1995).
*This page will  not  be an official PUC-SP publication, its content was not examined nor edited by this institution. All responsability for its content is attributed to the author."

Last update: November 10th 2006