Using Mutual Information to Identify Regions of Analysis for Prosodic Analysis

This paper presents a novel technique for empirically identifying regions of analysis for time/value information. The technique relies on analysis of mutual information between the contour, and some variable of interest. We present the use of this technique in the analysis of prosody in American English speech, where we identify valuable regions of analysis for the classification of phrase ending intonation. We also use the technique to investigate the most informative region of analysis for pitch accent detection.