Acoustic and Perceptual-Auditory Determinants of Transmission of Speech and Music Information (in Regard to Semiotics)

Abstract

The paper presents conception regarding speech and music research on the basis of semiotics. The speech and music semiotic systems are examined as special hierarchical subsystems of the common human semiotic interpersonal communication system. And what is more every speech semiotic subsystem has its own subsystems: e.g., articulatory, phonatory, acoustic, perceptual-auditory etc. The speech semiotic acoustic subsystem has its own subsystems, e.g. duration (tn – ms), intensity (I_n – dB), fundamental frequency (F_0n – Hz), spectrum values (F_n – Hz). Speech and music are considered as two congeneric phenomena subsystems of the common semiotic interpersonal communication system with regard to semantics, syntactics and pragmatics: semantics as an area of relations between speech and music expressions, on the one hand, and objects and processes in the world, on the other hand; syntactics as an area of the interrelations of these expressions; pragmatics as an area of the influence of the meaning of these expressions on their users. This speech and music semiotic conception includes binary oppositions “ratio-emotio”, actual “thema-rhema” segmentation of speech and musical text/discourse, “segmental-suprasegmental items”, “prosody-timbre items”, etc. In this research was made an attempt to show the progressiveness of using the method of music “score” (composed on the basis of the results of speech prosodic characteristics analysis), which can help to determine the informativeness of parameters used for determining the speakers’ emotional state. Creation of music score based on this analysis is viewed as a model for a prosodic vocal outline of the utterance. At the same time the prosodic basis of speech and basic expressive means of the “music language” are connected. Speech as well as music uses the same space and time coordinates representing sound item movements. The height metric grid is based on this principle, which determines sound item in dynamics. Time organization of music and speech creates a common temporal basis. The music score created on the basis of the results of the prosodic features acoustic analysis meets the requirements taking into consideration the restrictions caused by the absence of segmented (sound-syllable) text. Thus, with the help of special music synthesis of speech utterance on the basis of the acoustic and further perceptual-auditory analysis it is possible to conduct an “analysis-synthesis” research.