Isochrony reconsidered . Objectifying relations between Rhythm Measures and Speech Tempo

Recently, new ways of measuring rhythmic differences have been proposed. These are derived from syllable stru cture and prosodic differences between languages. The measure ments are all durational: the variability of vocalic and consonantal intervals is calculated and plotted on two axes. Ve ry small amounts of read material have been analysed. But the structural basis of the measurements implies depend ency on the nature of the speech material: representativity problem. Tempo measurements are a function of phoneand syllable duration and must therefore be confounded with rhyt hm measures. This study presents a comparative rhythm analysis of spontaneous Italian and German. Some of these pr oblems, in particular Speech Tempo, are discussed.