Events
CRiSM Seminar
This talk introduces the use of Linear Mixed Effects (LME) analysis to model f0 (pitch) production in a language with two tones, and demonstrates the advantages of using such a method of analysis. LME can be used to weigh the impact of a large number of effects, it can demonstrate the interaction among those effects, and can also show how both fixed and random effects contribute to the model. Unlike previous analytical methods for modeling f0 in tone languages, LME analysis allows researchers to have more freedom in designing experiments, and to have sufficient variety in the dataset without having to rely on nonsense words and phrases to fill out a data matrix. LME makes it is possible to put a multitude of effects and interactions into a single comprehensive model of f0. The ensuing model is easy to interpret and straightforward to compare crosslinguistically. LME analysis makes possible a quantitative typology that shows clearly how linguistic and nonlinguistic factors combine in the production of f0 for each language thus analyzed. The talk will also veer into discussion of how to model f0 based on the pitch curve of each syllable. Although each curve contains an infinite number of points, there is striking similarity between the curve-based model and the point-based model.