Larkey L S
J Acoust Soc Am. 1983 Apr;73(4):1337-45. doi: 10.1121/1.389237.
Reiterant speech, or nonsense syllable mimicry, has been proposed as a way to study prosody, particularly syllable and word durations, unconfounded by segmental influences. Researchers have shown that segmental influences on durations can be neutralized in reiterant speech. If it is to be a useful tool in the study of prosody, it must also be shown that reiterant speech preserves the suprasegmental duration and intonation differences relevant to perception. In the present study, syllable durations for nonreiterant and reiterant ambiguous sentences were measured to seek evidence of the duration differences which can enable listeners to resolve surface structure ambiguities in nonreiterant speech. These duration patterns were found in both nonreiterant and reiterant speech. A perceptual study tested listeners' perception of these ambiguous sentences as spoken by four "good" speakers--speakers who neutralized intrinsic duration differences and whose sentences were independently rated by skilled listeners as good imitations of normal speech. The listeners were able to choose the correct interpretation when the ambiguous sentences were in reiterant form as well as they did when the sentences were spoken normally. These results support the notion that reiterant speech is like nonreiterant speech in aspects which are important in the study of prosody.
重复言语，即无意义音节模仿，已被提议作为一种研究韵律的方法，特别是音节和单词时长，不受音段影响的干扰。研究人员表明，在重复言语中，音段对时长的影响可以被抵消。如果它要成为韵律研究中的一个有用工具，还必须表明重复言语保留了与感知相关的超音段时长和语调差异。在本研究中，测量了非重复和重复的歧义句的音节时长，以寻找时长差异的证据，这些差异能够使听众解决非重复言语中的表层结构歧义。在非重复和重复言语中都发现了这些时长模式。一项感知研究测试了听众对由四位“优秀”说话者说出的这些歧义句的感知——这些说话者抵消了内在时长差异，并且他们的句子被专业听众独立评为对正常言语的良好模仿。当歧义句以重复形式说出时，听众能够像句子正常说出时一样选择正确的解释。这些结果支持了这样一种观点，即在韵律研究中重要的方面，重复言语与非重复言语相似。
