The thesis tackles the controversy of the rhythmic

type of Polish. In the first chapter, the concepts of

timing, duration, meter and rhythm are defined.

The rationale for not using “rhythm metrics“ to

answer the main research question is provided in

chapter two. Their robustness, inability to model

hierarchical structures and the lack of grounding in

relevant perception and production processes are

discussed. A coupled oscillator model (COM)

(O'Dell and Nieminen, 2009) and the discipline of

coordination dynamics are introduced in the third

chapter. Past results on rhythm modeling using

linear regression are portrayed and linked to the

COM, as demonstrated in (O'Dell and Nieminen

2009), namely: relative coupling strength

expresses the coordination between the phonetic

syllable level and the rhythmic prominence, as

derived from inter-level timing phenomena. The

model is implemented using spontaneous speech

data from Polish dialogues. The results suggest

that as speech rate increases, the syllabic

oscillator gains influence over the rhythmic

prominence oscillator in Polish. In the final chapter,

the “voicing effect” and the “geminate effect” on

preceding vowel duration are analysed. The

hypothesis of a duration balancing effect exerted

by the syllabic oscillator on the constituent

segments in these contexts is tested. The results

suggests that the hypothesis is weakly supported.

An articulatory effort-based explanation is

suggested instead.