The time course of pitch variation towards possible places of speaker transition in German and Swedish

Abstract

A large body of studies has been carried out to investigate the phonology of conversation. One of the main issues is the significance of certain linguistic settings for turn-taking. The present study adds to the ongoing discussion by investigating pitch movements at different time points: (i) at the turn end, (ii) 200ms before potential turn boundary, (iii) 500ms before potential turn boundary. These values are exacted and compared between different situations of speaker change, backchannels and floor keeps. Moreover, we carry out a cross-linguistic comparison by analyzing pitch as a turn-taking cue in two languages i.e. German and Swedish. Results of our pilot study give evidence for differences concerning final pitch patterns before the offset of speech. Most strikingly, we find much more variation in the pitch span of German speakers, while Swedish is more restricted in F0 variation at turn boundaries. We also observe that German speakers terminate turns with a higher F0 compared to Swedish speakers, who fall more often to their baseline pitch. Interpreted are these findings in the light of structural differences between German and Swedish concerning deployment of pitch accents as being either lexical or for prominence marking. The Swedish pitch accent permits the use of pitch for conversational purposes while German allows a free variation of F0.