The role of fundamental frequency in signaling linguistic stress and affect: evidence for a dissociation.

The fundamental frequency (F0) of the voice is used to convey information about both linguistic and affective distinctions. However, no research has directly investigated how these two types of distinctions are simultaneously encoded in speech production. This study provides evidence that F0 prominences intended to convey linguistic or affective distinctions can be differentiated by their influence on the amount of final-syllable F0 rise used to signal a question. Specifically, a trading relation obtains when the F0 prominence is used to convey emphatic stress. That is, the amount of final-syllable F0 rise decreases as the F0 prominence increases. When the F0 prominence is used to convey affect, no trading relation is observed.