Speech rhythm though there is no evidence for meter in speech there is an acoustic basis for cross-language differences in speech rhythm But what about the stress-timing/syllable-timing dichotomy? Linguists proposed that the worlds languages would fall into two rhythm classes Is there evidence for this dichotomy from durational variability data?Speech Rhythm ◼ Although there is no evidence for meter in speech, there is an acoustic basis for cross-language differences in speech rhythm ◼ But what about the stress-timing/syllable-timing dichotomy? Linguists proposed that the world’s languages would fall into two rhythm classes ◼ Is there evidence for this dichotomy from durational variability data?