Abstract: Fundamental frequency (F0, broadly ``pitch'') is an integral part of spoken human language and in many languages such as Mandarin Chinese, relative pitch information is part of each word's dictionary entry. However, a comprehensive quantitative model for F0 can be a challenge to formulate due to the large number of effects and interactions between effects that lie behind the human voice's production of F0, and the very nature of the data being a contour rather than a point. A semi-parametric functional response model for F0 will be formulated by incorporating linear mixed effects models through the functional principal component scores. This model is applied to the problem of modelling F0 in the tone languages such as Mandarin and Qiang (a dialect from China).

[Joint work with Jonathan Evans, Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, and Jeng-Min Chiou, Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica].