Physiological and acoustic Study on the Production of Focus

通过喉肌电图术和颌骨运动的X射线微束观察，对病灶的产生进行了生理学研究。知觉研究还考察了与焦点相关的韵律模式对句子结构知觉的影响。焦点产生的肌电研究：一种新的环甲肌活动与产生的FO轮廓之间的相关分析方法被应用于不同重音和焦点条件下的语音材料。发现病灶下胸骨舌骨肌电活动受到强烈抑制。非重音短语的抑制作用比重音短语更强。这种抑制及其与重音的关系可以根据Atkinson(1978)提出的喉部状态功能的概念来解释。X-射线微束研究焦点产生过程中的颌骨运动。人们普遍认为，在日语中，基频在焦点的产生中起着最重要的作用。然而，近年来，人们注意到，焦点也会影响分段特征。目前的研究表明，当一个重音短语被聚焦时，该重音短语的下巴张开程度会更大。此外，焦点的影响还表现为颌骨张开的减少。因此，焦点效应并不是一种局部性现象。突显对歧义句子的感知有影响。研究了与焦点相关的音高模式对日语句法歧义消解的影响。结果表明，韵律线索(音调模式)会影响句子的理解，即使句子具有强烈的语义偏向。研究结果也显示出韵律线索的局限性。韵律偏向本身并不足以完全决定句子的解释，即使句子在语义上是中性的偏向。

Physiological studies on the production of the focus were conducted through laryngeal electromyography and x-ray microbeam observation of jaw movements. Perceptual studies were also conducted to examine the effect of the prosodic patterns associated with the focus in the perception of the sentence structure.1. Electromyographic study of focus production.A new method of correlation analysis between cricothyroid muscle activity and the resulting FO contour was applied to speech material varying in accentedness and focal conditions. It was found that the strong suppression of the sternohyoid muscle activity under focus. The suppression was stronger in unaccented phrases than in accented ones. The suppression and its relationship to accent can be interpreted proposed based on the notion of laryngeal state function proposed in Atkinson (1978).2. X-ray microbeam study of jaw movement in the production of focus.It has generally been acknowledged that the fundamental frequency plays a most important role in the production of the focus in Japanese. However, in recent years, it is noted that the focus also affects the segmental features. The present study revealed that the jaw opening in a given accent phrase is larger when the accent phrase is focused. Furthermore, the effect of focus was also seen in a form of the reduction of the jaw opening. Thus, the effect of focus is not a localized phenomenon.Effect of prominence on the perception of the ambiguous sentences.The effects of pitch pattern associated with focus on the syntactic ambiguity resolution of Japanese sentences were studied. The results showed that prosodic cues (pitch pattern) can influence the interpretation of a sentence even when the sentence is strongly semantically biased. The results also showed a limitation to prosodic cues. The prosodic biases alone were not sufficient to fully determine the interpretation of the sentences even when the sentences were neutrally biased semantically.