PROSODY IN THE COMPREHENSION OF SPOKEN LANGUAGE - A LITERATURE-REVIEW

Research on the exploitation of prosodic information in the comprehens ion of spoken language is reviewed. The research falls into three main areas: the use of prosody in the recognition of spoken words, in whic h most attention has been paid to the question of whether the prosodic structure of a word plays a role in initial activation of stored lexi cal representations; the use of prosody in the computation of syntacti c structure, in which the resolution of global and local ambiguities h as formed the central focus; and the role of prosody in the processing of discourse structure, in which there has been a preponderance of wo rk on the contribution of accentuation and deaccentuation to integrati on of concepts with an existing discourse model. The review reveals th at in each area progress has been made towards new conceptions of pros ody's role in processing, and in particular this has involved abandonm ent of previously held deterministic views of the relationship between prosodic structure and other aspects of linguistic structure.