Speech Prosody: From Acoustics to Interpretation

Daniel Hirst has been working in the field of speech prosody and phonology for over fifty years. Currently Emeritus Research Director for the CNRS in Aix-en-Provence, he has published numerous articles/chapters in several major journals/international volumes and has edited a major study of the intonation of languages of the world (Hirst & Di Cristo (eds) 1998 Intonation Systems: a Survey of Twenty Languages), published by Cambridge University Press.He has developed software for the automatic analysis of speech prosody (Momel, Intsint, ProZed), implemented as plugins for the Praat speech analysis software, which are freely available, together with most of his publications from: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Daniel_Hirst/research__;!!NLFGqXoFfo8MMQ!sQqmZNP4AANRNccFr8GND0U5PdCSH1LCXPVrN1FxogsnEFpUT2kgEy75CZREUcFST3V9UGQBm7zkb_uZ8Q$In 2000, he founded SProSIG, a special interest group for the study of speech prosody, under the aegis of ISCA, theInternational Speech Communication Association and IPA, the International Phonetic Association.In 2002, he organised the first International Conference on Speech Prosody, in Aix en Provence, France.Since then, the Conference has been held regularly every two years in Europe, Asia, North and South America,The next conference will be in the Netherlands (Leiden) in 2024.In 2013, he was elected fellow of ISCA and in 2014 member of the Permanent Council for the Organisation of ICPhS, the international Congress of Phonetic Sciences.In 2018, he was elected ISCA distinguished lecturer for 2018-2019, for which he travelled to Indonesia (Bandung), Singapore, Iran (Qazvin and Shahrekord) and China (Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha and Xi’an) giving lectures and tutorials.

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Speech Prosody, the Missing Link.- 3. Looking at Sounds.- 4. The Transcription of Speech Prosody.- 5. The Prosody of Words.- 6. The Phonology of Speech Prosody.- 7. Prosodic Structure.- 8. Modelling Speech Rhythm.- 9. Modelling Speech Melody.- 10. Interpreting Speech Prosody.- 11. Conclusion