Acoustic correlates of prosodic dimensions in younger and older speakers of Czech

The present study reports phonetic data applicable for diagnostic purposes in voice related pathologies. However, apart from purely physiological concern, linguistic considerations are also acknowledged since the speech material consists of a continuous spoken text. Three age groups of speakers were recorded (young, middle-aged and old adults), each represented by 15 men and 15 women (n = 90). Several measures of fundamental frequency, together with variation in intensity and speech tempo were captured. An appreciably innovative metric, Cumulative Slope Index (CSI), was successfully employed to capture F0 variability in utterances. The results confirm differences between the age groups, but also between men and women, and contribute the normative mapping of the Czech population.