Introduction. Models and Measurements in the Study of Prosody

Abstract

There are two broad traditions in the study of prosody that may be characterized — or caricatured — by their methodological preferences for one or the other of the scientific activities mentioned in the title: making measurements and constructing models. On one side of the dichotomy stand instrumental and experimental studies that seek to quantify acoustic features and investigate perceptual responses. On the other are descriptive and theoretical studies of prosodic structure and its relation to other aspects of grammar and phonology. In a great deal of past work these two traditions have simply ignored one another.