Mar Cordero (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS)
Títol: Cracking French through acoustics: the challenge for dyslexics and learners.
Resum: Elision is a phonological sandhi phenomenon by which syllables and word boundaries are misaligned. Some determiner phrases (DP) in French can thus become ambiguous, such as /lami/, which coincides with two lexical representations: mie ('crumb') and amie ('friend'). These DPs exhibit distinctive fundamental frequency (F0) patterns and duration differences in the initial phonemes /l/ and /a/. Native speakers have been shown to discriminate between these DPs. However, proper segmentation and word recognition can be challenging for some listeners. In the first experiment we examined whether the phonological deficits experienced by DD individuals also affect the processing of language-specific intonational cues. We manipulated the F0 slope and/or mean value of the first vowel /a/ in consonant-initial items (e.g., la mie). We tested 49 DD adults and 49 skilled readers (SR) and assessed differences in processing in a word repetition task. In a second experiment we tested 31 native French speakers and 22 non-native speakers (11 English and 11 Spanish). We investigated the interplay of L1 and L2 prosodic strategies to segment speech in an AX discrimination task. Results of the first experiment showed that modifying the F0 slope and F0 mean value only influences speech segmentation for both DD and SR groups. Results of the second experiment showed high error rates by both L1 and L2 groups when exposed to different items. However, both L2 groups.

Clara Lombart (UNamur and UMons)
Títol: The multimodal prosodic marking of contrast in French and French Belgian Sign Language (LSFB).
Resum: Previous research has demonstrated that in sign languages, contrast is prosodically expressed by manual and non-manual cues (i.e., cues produced by the eyebrows, head, or torso) (Wilbur, 2012; Kimmelman & Pfau, 2016). In spoken languages, the prosodic encoding of contrast is multimodal as eyebrow, head, body, and hand movements can be used for the same functions as and/or can be temporally synchronized with prosodic cues (Ferré, 2014; Loehr, 2014; Im & Baumann, 2020). The question of the comparison of gestures and signs has thus become relevant since the same articulators are used for similar functional purposes in both sets of languages (Fenlon & Brentari, 2021). This kind of comparison needs to be further addressed, and it is the purpose of the PhD research presented in this communication. To fulfil this goal, we analyzed comparable data produced by native LSFB (French Belgian Sign Language) signers and native French speakers in similar conditions. Data were annotated by taking into account 1) French prosodic cues (i.e., lengthening, syllabic duration, F0 per syllable, pitch range, prosodic prominence, and articulation rate), 2) French and LSFB head/eyebrow/body movements, and 3) French hand gestures and properties of the LSFB manual cues (i.e., hold, displacement, repetition, dominance reversal). Preliminary results show that contrast has its own kind of prosodic marking in LSFB and French at the different levels investigated in the research (prosodic and gestural in French as well as manual and non-manual in LSFB). Furthermore, LSFB signs and French gestures differ in terms of frequencies of use, forms, and combinations. The interactions between prosody, information structure, and the pragmatic and contextual properties of the interactions are discussed to explain the different patterns highlighted in the data sample. All of this opens new avenues for a more thorough definition of prosody and IS across languages (e.g. regarding the definition of prosodic prominence).