Shaping Rhythm to Keep Balance: The Structural Implications of Temporal Modulation

Durational information provides a reliable cue to the unfolding syntactic structure of a sentence. At the same time, durational properties of speech are largely dependent on predictability: Less predictable elements of an utterance are more carefully articulated, and thus produced more slowly. While these two determinants of duration (structure and predictability) often align, there exists a well-defined exception where the two factors make opposite predictions. We discuss converging evidence for tempo modulation playing a crucial role in the disambiguation of clausal attachment (modifier versus argument), leading to a shorter duration for the less predictable nested structure and a longer duration for the more predictable sisterhood structure. We then present an account of these temporal patterns based on the interaction of independently motivated prosodic principles.