I’m a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cologne, where I’m working on phon{etics/ology} with emphasis on speech prosody. I’m interested in (auditory) perception and (linguistic) cognition, and I’m endlessly fascinated by the tension between dynamic and symbolic models of language.

Current projects

Project A01 in the SFB 1252 Prominence in Language

I work as a postdoctoral researcher in Cologne’s collaborative research center, SFB 1252 “Prominence in Language”. Specifically, I’m working with PIs Martine Grice and Petra B. Schumacher in Project A01: Intonation and attention orienting: Neurophysiological and behavioural correlates.
 

ProPer: PROsodic analysis with PERiodic energy

ProPer (PROsodic analysis with PERiodic energy), is a collection of open-source scripts and codes (using Praat and R programs) for acoustic analysis of speech prosody. I manage an open repository on OSF that includes codes, examples, some instructions and related literature. Let me know if you have ANY question about this toolbox.
Check out the ProPer OSF repository...

My Book

My book, A model of sonority based on pitch intelligibility is freely available on Language Science Press. The book offers novel approaches to the problem of sonority, arguing that it is a universal characteristic of prosody that requires pitch-bearing syllables as the building blocks of speech. I cover theoretical and methodological aspects of this proposal with experimental and corpus-based evidence.

Selected publications

• Albert, Aviad, & Grice, Martine. (in press). Rhythm is a timescale. In L. Meyer & A. Strauß (Eds.), Rhythms of Speech and Language: Culture, Cognition, and the Brain. Cambridge University Press. (preprint: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/h3g7t)
• Albert, Aviad. 2023. A Model of Sonority Based on Pitch Intelligibility. Studies in Laboratory Phonology 13. Berlin: Language Science Press. doi: 10.5281/zenodo.7837176
• Sbranna, Simona, Caterina Ventura, Aviad Albert, and Martine Grice. 2023. Prosodic Marking of Information Status in Italian. Journal of Phonetics 97. doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2023.101212.
• Albert, Aviad, and Bruno Nicenboim. 2022. Modeling Sonority in Terms of Pitch Intelligibility with the Nucleus Attraction Principle. Cognitive Science 46. doi:10.1111/cogs.13161.
• Albert, Aviad. 2022. Sonority in Modern Hebrew. Radical: A Journal of Phonology 4: 531-594.
• Albert, Aviad. 2019. The state of stop-fricative alternations in Modern Hebrew. In Modern Hebrew Phonetics and Phonology: Descriptive Studies. Eds. Noam Faust, Evan-Gary Cohen & Outi Bat-El. Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 11. 132-162.
• Cangemi, Francesco, Aviad Albert & Martine Grice. 2019. Modelling intonation: Beyond segments and tonal targets. In the proceedings of the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 2019).
• Albert, Aviad, Francesco Cangemi & Martine Grice. 2018. Using periodic energy to enrich acoustic representations of pitch in speech: A demonstration. In the proceedings of Speech Prosody 9.
• Botwinik, Irena & Aviad Albert. 2015. Prosodic Prominence in Hebrew Binominal Construction: The Occurrance of šel. In the online proceedings of pS-prominenceS: Prominences in Linguistics. Viterbo, Italy.
• Albert, Aviad, Brian MacWhinney, Bracha Nir & Shuly Wintner. 2013. The Hebrew CHILDES Corpus: Transcription and Morphological Analysis. Language Resources and Evaluation 47(4): 973-1005.
• Albert, Aviad & Hadass Zaidenberg. 2012. Filler Syllables in the Acquisition of Hebrew: A Prosodic Account. Brill’s Annual of Afoasiatic Languages and Linguistics (BAALL) 4: 162-188.

Other

• Editorial Assistant, Studies in Laboratory Phonology, Language Science Press: http://langsci-press.org/catalog/series/silp

Music

Check out my music projects on https://finkelbert.com/