F0 declination in read-aloud and spontaneous speech

This paper deals with a prosodic comparison of spontaneous and read-aloud speech. More specifically, the study reports data on F0 declination in these two speaking modes using Swedish materials. For both speaking styles the analysis revealed negative slopes, a steepness-duration dependency with declination being less steep in longer utterances than in shorter ones and resetting at utterance boundaries. However, there was a difference in degree of declination between the two speaking styles, read-aloud speech in general having steeper slopes, a more apparent time-dependency and stronger resetting than spontaneous speech. 1. INTRODUCTION There is a growing interest in comparative studies of readaloud and spontaneous speech. These are generally thought to representtwo`speaking styles that are so distinct that results obtained for one do not necessarily generalize to the other. The study to be reported on here aims at testing whether the twostyles are prosodically di#erent. More speci #ca...