Prominence and Grouping in Papuan Malay Prosody Perception

Abstract

For successful processing of the speech signal, listeners need to perform at least two prosodic tasks: allocating prominences and grouping into smaller units. The separation of these two functions has been a fundamental assumption in the modeling of prosody production and perception across languages. The current study investigates how listeners allocate prominences and demarcate (group) them at the word level in Papuan Malay, an under-researched language of Papua, Indonesia. To this end, a tapping and a grouping task were carried out using acoustically manipulated sequences of strong and weak syllables. It was tested how duration, intensity, spectral tilt and vowel quality affect listeners’ prominence and grouping responses. The results show that, taking into account the variation among participants and items, all cues facilitate prominence allocation, in particular if they are strong enough. Spectral tilt was the main cue found to affect grouping, although duration seemed to play a double role for both prominence and grouping. The outcomes are discussed not only for how they improve our understanding of Papuan Malay prosody, but also for their contribution to the separation of perceptual functions in prosodic theory.