The Smooth Signal Redundancy Hypothesis and Prosodic Structure

Alice Turk
The University of Edinburgh

In the first part of this talk, I review the claims of the Smooth Signal Redundancy hypothesis in speech production. The Smooth Signal Redundancy view hypothesizes that speakers plan the complementarity of language redundancy (recognition likelihood based on lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic factors as well as real world knowledge) and acoustic redundancy (recognition likelihood based on acoustic salience) in order to achieve a smooth signal redundancy profile (even recognition likelihood of all elements in an utterance). I discuss evidence suggesting that speakers control signal redundancy through the manipulation of planned prosodic structure, which includes both prominence and constituent structure.

In the second part of the talk, I present results from a speech perception experiment showing adult-child differences in cue weighting for word-initial vs. word-final consonants. I suggest that these adult-child differences can be explained by adults’ opportunities to learn about differences in language redundancy for word-initial vs. word-final consonants.

If you would like to meet the speaker, please contact Frank Zimmerer.