Speech Prosody in Persian Language

Background: In verbal communication in addition of semantic and grammatical aspects, includes: vocabulary, syntax and phoneme, some special voice characteristics were use that called speech prosody. Speech prosody is one of the important factors of communication which includes: intonation, duration, pitch, loudness, stress, rhythm and etc. The aim of this survey is studying some factors of prosody as duration, fundamental frequency range and intonation contour. Materials and Methods: This study is performed with cross-sectional and descriptive-analytic approach. The participants include 134 male and female between 18-30 years old who normally speak Persian. Two sentences include: an interrogative and one declarative sentence were studied. Voice samples were analyzed by Dr. Speech software (real analysis software) and data were analyzed by statistical test of unilateral variance analysis and in depended T test, and intonation contour was drawn for sentences. Results: Mean of duration between kinds of sentences had a significant difference. Mean of duration had significant difference between female and male. Fundamental frequency range between kinds of sentences had not significant difference. Fundamental frequency range in female is higher than male. Conclusion: Duration is an affective factor in Persian prosody. The higher fundamental frequency range in female is because of different anatomical and physiological mechanisms in phonation system. In addition higher fundamental frequency range in female is the result of an authority of language use in Farsi female. The end part of intonation contour in yes/no question is rising, in declarative sentence is falling.