Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense

young researcher, Sciences du langage

MoDyCo

Thesis Title: “Rhuthmem”, phonological rhythm unit: hypothesis for vestibular function involvement.

About

In order to better understand the notion of rhythmicity in languages, we tried to
determine the inherent qualities of rhythm itself. The phenomena of accentuation, whose real impetus maintains movement sequencing and duration, as well as the capacity of anticipation and impregnation of the habitus, are thus highlighted. We then emphasized the property of incorporating the rhythmic factor, a unique characteristic that distinguishes the concept of measurement, or metric, on which its organization rests, as a generating act. For many reasons, we postulate that vestibular function is the primary vector for the incorporation of this act. In the realm of language, the application of this hypothesis, rhythm acting as generator, tends toward legitimizing slight variations in the same speaker’s linguistic productions. We have coined the term "rhuthmem", or phonological unit of rhythm, to represent the class corresponding to the overall, well-formed rhythmic production for a given language. We verified the correctness of our hypotheses with experiments on tactile perception and/or hearing the speech, taking nine languages that cover various recognized rhythmic classes. The subjects, chosen for their musical ear and the diversity of their native languages, performed a task of tapping in sync with the rhythm ‘felt’. We also present some pilot experiments with the VEMP test that encourage us in our hypothesis regarding the involvement of vestibular function in perception-production rate.

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