Eurospeech 2001- Scandinavia Testing the Perceptual Relevance of Syntactic Completion and Melodic Configuration for Turn-Taking in Dutch

The research presented in this paper focuses on the role of melodic configuration and syntactic completion in the turn-taking process in Dutch. Subjects were presented with fragments of task-oriented dialogue, in which syntactic completeness and four types of melodic configuration were systematically varied, asking them to indicate whether they expected the turn to change after the fragment or not. In a second test fragments containing speaker changes were presented, asking the subjects to indicate whether they thought the original speaker wanted to yield the turn or not. Results indicate that syntactic completion is the main factor in projecting possible turn-transition places: the number of expected speaker changes is very low when the current speaker has not reached a possible completion point. A rising pitch accent followed by a level boundary tone (H * %) is generally interpreted as a signal that the speaker wishes to continue, irrespective of syntactic completion, while H * H%, H*L L % and H*L H % configurations at syntactic boundaries are expected to be followed by a speaker change in the majority of cases. The data support the view that syntactic and melodic completion play a major role in the projection of possible turn-transition places. 1