A multimodal approach to study the nature of coordinative patterns underlying speech rhythm

Research on speech rhythm suggests that coordination between syllable and supra-syllabic prominence defines rhythmic differences between languages. This study investigates the role of language-specific phonological processes in the emergence of language-specific coordinative patterns underlying speech rhythm, which result from sensorimotor processes during speech production. French and German speakers repeated disyllabic utterances simultaneously with pre-recorded productions of these utterances. We manipulated the location of prominence in the stimuli and asked speakers to reproduce the heard prominence pattern. Despite the surface cross-linguistic similarity of the recorded productions between the speakers of the two languages, the analysis of laryngeal activity revealed language-dependent coordination between syllables and prominence production, suggesting an influence of language-specific phonology on speech rhythm control even when producing unfamiliar prosodic patterns.