This study investigates F0 ddeclination as a global-level prosodic phenomenon, establishing a new discourse-based model of prosodic structure in Japanese. The model includes two levels of declination in a hierarchical order: utterance units and prosodic paragraphs, a higher level of declination consisting of embedded declinations. Comparing and contrasting three types of discourse -- read speech, conversation, and narrative -- this study provides an accurate description of declination, based on an all-points linear regression line procedure. The resutls reveal a significant occurrence of declination not only in read speech but also in spontaneous speech. In addition, all three types of discourse exhibit both levels of declination, i.e. utterance units and prosodic paragraphs, providing evidence for the discourse model proposed in this study.
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