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Unit 18: Rhythm

However, in the previous studies of different languages the data was also, necessarily, lexically Notes
different for each speaker. Related to the nature of the task is the nature of the recording
environment. The original PVI measures were applied to recordings made in optimal conditions,
whereas the results reported in the current experiment were made in a clinic and a participant's
home. This means that it was sometimes more difficult to use a visual signal to measure durations,
and consequently more reliance was placed on listening. The nature of the recording environment
and the limitations of the task are necessary consequences of working with clinical populations.
However it is the authors' feeling that the results presented in this paper can be treated with
confidence as the control participant's measures were so similar to those previously described for
other varieties of English.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Rhythem is made up of .............. and sileness.
(a) rules (b) grammar
(c) sound (d) all of these
(ii) The establishment of a basic beat reanires the perception of a regular sequence of distinct
short-duration ............... .
(a) rhythm (b) pulses
(c) drum (d) none of these

18.7 Summary

• The results presented in this paper indicate that there is a deficit in the rhythm produced by
a speaker with RHD, which leads to a less stress-timed rhythm than that of a normal control
in respect of intervocalic intervals. This may suggest that some aspects of speech prosody
are right lateralised for this speaker. The authors of this paper are currently undertaking a
study with more subjects, and with a more controlled task and recording environment in
order to ascertain how far this finding can be generalised.
• Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of
strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of
regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural
phenomena having a periodicity or frequency of anything from microseconds to millions of
years.
• In the performance arts rhythm is the timing of events on a human scale; of musical sounds
and silences, of the steps of a dance, or the meter of spoken language and poetry. Rhythm
may also refer to visual presentation, as "timed movement through space." and a common
language of pattern unites rhythm with geometry. In recent years, rhythm and meter have
become an important area of research among music scholars. Recent work in these areas
includes books by Maury Yeston, Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff, Jonathan Kramer,
Christopher Hasty, Godfried Toussaint, William Rothstein, and Joel Lester.
• Rhythm is made up of sounds and silences. These sound and silences are put together to
form a pattern of sounds which are repeated to create a rhythm. A rhythm has a steady beat,
but it may also have different kinds of beats. Some beats may be stronger, longer, shorter or
softer than others. In a single piece of music, a composer can use many different rhythms.

18.8 Key-Words
1. Rhythm and Parallelism : "Parallelism builds rhythm, and nonparallelism kills it. Imagine
that Marc Antony had said: 'I came for the purpose of burying
Caesar, not to praise him.' Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
"Inattentive writers muck up lists badly, throwing imbalanced

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