Duration and Intensity as Correlates of Fo.

Abstract The experiment reported in this paper is to determine whether fundamental frequency is correlated with both duration and intensity. Taiwanese was chosen for investigation as it has five contrastive tones, which are high, mid, low, high-falling and low-rising. A PDP-12 computer was used to obtain values of fundamental frequency, duration and intensity. The results show that (1) the high tone has a higher overall intensity than the mid tone, and the mid tone has a higher overall intensity than the low tone; (2) the high tone and the mid tone have a longer duration than the low tone, however, the difference in duration between the high tone and the mid tone is non-significant; (3) the high-falling tone has a higher overall intensity than the low-rising tone, although the low-rising tone has a longer duration. The results are discussed in terms of theories of pitch production and speed of pitch change.