A prosodic analysis of insertion repair at transition space in Chinese conversation

Abstract

This paper examines the prosodic cues of a particular type of self-repair, namely, insertion repair at transition place in Mandarin Chinese. Studies on the prosodic cues of self-repair mostly examined repair types such as repetition and replacement initiated before a turn unit's completion. Studies on further talk past a turn unit's completion observed different prosodic packaging for further talk constructed as a new separate unit and further talk constructed as syntactic extension of the preceding unit. Our study of the insertion repair produced past a turn unit's completion examined the prosodic cues such as speech rate, F0 and intensity of the repair-target unit, the repairing unit and the inserted material in the repair unit. The results show a general pattern for the repairing unit to be produced with quickened tempo, reduced pitch and amplitude and less energy. The results also show that the inserted materials in the repairing unit tend to receive prominence in terms of intensity.