Research into the contribution of pitch range to the analysis of speaker characteristics often treats pitch range as a simple measurement. Pitch range has been defined as the difference between minimum and maximum f0 (Cosmides 1983). This data alone conveys no information about the distribution of f0 values within that range. Similarly, the mean and standard deviation does not adequately capture important differences in the pitch range of different speakers (Ladd et al. 1985). Ladd (1996) describes pitch range using two partially independent dimensions of variation, those of overall level and span. This idea has been further developed by Shriberg et al. (1996) in a study based on a large corpus of Dutch speech. Given this two parameter model, it is possible to predict target f0 values for points where speakers raise their voices from f0 values at corresponding locations in speech produced normally.The current study aims to continue and expand this previous research, but is now based on English speech. Furthermore, a panel of English subjects rated 32 speakers on 12 phonetic and pragmatic criteria such as confident, tense, irritated, relaxed, deep. The results for listener judgements of these phonetic and pragmatic criteria were reduced to 2 dimensions that patterned similarly to those found in previous studies (Uldall 1964, Pakosz 1982). The 2 dimensions were correlated with the pitch range model parameters. The statistical analysis has provided strong evidence that a more elaborate model offers more insight than a simple definition into the communicative effects of pitch range.
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