Mathematical and prosodic analysis of intonation in Malayalam

Title

Mathematical and prosodic analysis of intonation in Malayalam

Creator

Mahesh, M.; Pradosh, Keshav M.V.

Description

This study investigates the intonation patterns of Malayalam, a language spoken in Kerala, India, using polynomial regression and Kernel Density Estimation. Malayalam has distinct pitch modulation patterns across genders and question types, with variations in acoustic features, syllables, and stress structures. We examine the mean pitch characteristics of different question types and analyze the correlation between stress patterns and syllable structure counts in the language. Additionally, we perform clustering analysis on Malayalam words to highlight similarities and diversities in acoustic features, which helps us understand the phonetic diversity within the language. Our analysis shows that the overlap of KDE curves in the feature space allows us to analyze the linguistic factors that influence variability in Malayalam speech. This suggests a need for further research on regions where syllable complexity and phonological patterns are notably concentrated. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2025.

Source

International Journal of Speech Technology;Volume;28;Issue;2;pp.531-540

Date

01-01-2025

Publisher

Springer

Subject

Intonation; Malayalam; Polynomial regression; Prosody analysis; Speech clustering

Coverage

Mahesh M., Department of English and Foreign Languages, SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, India; Pradosh K.M.V., Department of Physics and Electronics, Christ University, Bangalore, India

Rights

Restricted Access; Hardcopy may be available in the library

Relation

ISSN: 13812416; CODEN: ISTEF

Format

online

Language

English

Type

Article

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-025-10197-x

https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105008759823?origin=resultslist