The dynamic dimension of the global speech-rhythm attributes

Recent years have revealed that certain global attributes of speech rhythm can be quite successfully captured with respect to consonantal and vocalic intervals in spoken texts. One of the problems of this approach lies in complex syllabic structures. Unless we make an a-priori phonological decision, sonorous consonants may contribute to either vocalic or consonantal part of the speech signal in post-initial and prefinal positions of syllabic onsets and codas. A procedure is offered to avoid phonological dilemmas together with tedious manual work. The method is tested on continuous Czech and English texts read out by several professionals.