PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The adequate and pleasant delivery of poetic speech remains a challenge for humans and machines alike. The present corpus study analyzes factors and strategies that characterize the stylistic expression of poetry and prose by professional actors as well as laypersons with musical training, focusing on their pausing, lengthening and intonation at verse boundaries. Our results show a clear influence on speakers' experience in modulating their speech with respect to prosodic timing: professional actors systematically insert more and more diverse prosodic boundaries and pauses than laypersons, and make strategic use of lengthening at verse endings in poetic speech. Our results further point out the relevance of pausing and lengthening as a time-buying strategy that enhances speech fluency, and we make tentative suggestions for modeling (poetic) speech in expressive speech synthesis.