Project description
Understanding the physiology behind prosodic structure
Prosody, which includes the rhythm and melody of speech, is essential for communication as it shapes phrasing and emphasis of words. Despite its importance, there has been limited research done regarding the relationship between articulatory movements and breathing patterns, which results in the rhythm of the speech. This limits our understanding of this important aspect of communication. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the TEMPOS project aims to develop a framework based on articulatory acceleration. This will combine respiratory inductance plethysmography, electromagnetic articulography, and perturbation experiments to understand how prosodic rhythm, articulatory stability, and breathing cycles interact across three languages, as well as in second-language speech. The project will also construct acceleration-based models linking acoustics and articulation for use with explainable AI.
Objective
Prosody – the rhythm and melody of speech – is fundamental to communication, shaping phrasing, emphasis, and meaning. Yet the physiological basis of how breathing and articulatory movements interact to shape prosodic rhythm has received little systematic attention. This lack of grounding also limits speech technologies such as automatic speech recognition (ASR), in handling variation across dialects, emotions, and second-language (L2) speech.
TEMPOS (Temporal Precision in Speech – Unveiling the Physiology of Prosodic Structure) will address this by developing a new framework based on articulatory acceleration. In my previous work, I demonstrated that acceleration peaks – moments when force is added – provide stable, measurable landmarks of prosodic structure. Building on this, TEMPOS will combine electromagnetic articulography (EMA), respiratory inductance plethysmography (RIP), and perturbation experiments to examine how breathing cycles, articulatory stability, and prosodic rhythm interact in French, German, Swedish, and L2 speech.
The project pursues three goals: (1) determine how breathing and syllable prominence co-depend across exhalation; (2) test posture stability and rhythm control under perturbation; and (3) build acceleration-based models linking articulation and acoustics for explainable AI. Outcomes will provide the first physiologically grounded account of prosodic rhythm, informing clinical diagnosis, L2 teaching, and speech technology.
The project will be hosted at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (16 months) and GIPSA-lab, Grenoble (8 months), under the supervision of leading experts in phonetics and speech motor control, TEMPOS will advance methodological innovation and provide the pilot results needed for future competitive funding at national and international level.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- humanities languages and literature linguistics phonetics
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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10117 Berlin
Germany
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