Rhythm Perception in Speakers of Arabic, German and Hebrew

Osnat Segal*, Tom Fritzsche, Anjali Bhatara, Barbara Höhle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Rhythm perception in speech and non-speech acoustic stimuli has been shown to be affected by general acoustic biases as well as by phonological properties of the native language of the listener. The present paper extends the cross-linguistic approach in this field by testing the application of the iambic-trochaic law as an assumed general acoustic bias on rhythmic grouping of non-speech stimuli by speakers of three languages: Arabic, Hebrew and German. These languages were chosen due to relevant differences in their phonological properties on the lexical level alongside similarities on the phrasal level. The results show Iambic-Trochaic-Law (ITL) conforming weak–strong grouping for duration-cued acoustic salience. However, only German participants judged intensity-varying sequences as strong–weak; no grouping preferences were found for speakers of Arabic and Hebrew. Overall these results suggest that prosodic properties of the phonological phrase and of the lexical level of the native language show differing effects on rhythmical grouping.

Original languageEnglish
Article number5
JournalJournal of Psycholinguistic Research
Volume54
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2025

Keywords

  • German
  • Hebrew
  • Iambic-Trochaic Law
  • Lexical stress
  • Palestinian–Arabic
  • Phrasal stress

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