scholarly journals Prosodic Structure Shapes the Temporal Realization of Intonation and Manual Gesture Movements

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 850-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núria Esteve-Gibert ◽  
Pilar Prieto
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Temporal Coordination ◽  
Contrastive Focus ◽  
Focus Condition ◽  
Manual Gesture ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Pointing Gesture

Purpose Previous work on the temporal coordination between gesture and speech found that the prominence in gesture coordinates with speech prominence. In this study, the authors investigated the anchoring regions in speech and pointing gesture that align with each other. The authors hypothesized that (a) in contrastive focus conditions, the gesture apex is anchored in the intonation peak and (b) the upcoming prosodic boundary influences the timing of gesture and intonation movements. Method Fifteen Catalan speakers pointed at a screen while pronouncing a target word with different metrical patterns in a contrastive focus condition and followed by a phrase boundary. A total of 702 co-speech deictic gestures were acoustically and gesturally analyzed. Results Intonation peaks and gesture apexes showed parallel behavior with respect to their position within the accented syllable: They occurred at the end of the accented syllable in non–phrase-final position, whereas they occurred well before the end of the accented syllable in phrase-final position. Crucially, the position of intonation peaks and gesture apexes was correlated and was bound by prosodic structure. Conclusions The results refine the phonological synchronization rule (McNeill, 1992), showing that gesture apexes are anchored in intonation peaks and that gesture and prosodic movements are bound by prosodic phrasing.

Intonational Structure Influences Perception of Contrastive Vowel Length: The Case of Phrase-Final Lengthening in Tokyo Japanese

2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097184
Author(s):  
Jeremy Steffman ◽  
Hironori Katsuda
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Speech Signal ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Vowel Length ◽  
Target Sound ◽  
Tokyo Japanese ◽  
Forced Choice Task ◽  
Prosodic Boundary

Recent research has proposed that listeners use prosodic information to guide their processing of phonemic contrasts. Given that prosodic organization of the speech signal systematically modulates durational patterns (e.g., accentual lengthening and phrase-final (PF) lengthening), listeners’ perception of durational contrasts has been argued to be influenced by prosodic factors. For example, given that sounds are generally lengthened preceding a prosodic boundary, listeners may adjust their perception of durational cues accordingly, effectively compensating for prosodically-driven temporal patterns. In the present study we present two experiments designed to test the importance of pitch-based cues to prosodic structure for listeners’ perception of contrastive vowel length (CVL) in Tokyo Japanese along these lines. We tested if, when a target sound is cued as being PF, listeners compensatorily adjust categorization of vowel duration, in accordance with PF lengthening. Both experiments were a two-alternative forced choice task in which listeners categorized a vowel duration continuum as a phonemically short or long vowel. We manipulated only pitch surrounding the target sound in a carrier phrase to cue it as intonational phrase final, or accentual phrase medial. In Experiment 1 we tested perception of an accented target word, and in Experiment 2 we tested perception of an unaccented target word. In both experiments, we found that contextual changes in pitch influenced listeners’ perception of CVL, in accordance with their function as signaling intonational structure. Results therefore suggest that listeners use tonal information to compute prosodic structure and bring this to bear on their perception of durational contrasts in speech.

scholarly journals Making questions with tone: Polar question formation in Kinyarwanda

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Alexander Jarnow
Keyword(s):  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Question Formation ◽  
The Right

Kinyarwanda is a Bantu language with one phonemic (H) tone (Kimenyi 2002). This can phonetically realized as high, low, rising, and falling. This talk addresses the tonological discrepancy between declaratives and polar questions in Kinyarwanda. Kimenyi(1980) briefly addresses Kinyarwanda polar questions and describes them as “a rising pitch at the sentence final position”. This generalization captures crucially cannot predict polar questions in which there is no LHL contour at the end of the sentence. I argue that what polar questions share is (a) suspension of downstep on the rightmost lexical H and (b) deletion of all word-final prosodic H. Kinyarwanda forms a prosodic structure that takes the scope of the question. This expands on Richards (2010) analysis of wh-questions. Kinyarwanda marks the right edges of prosodic words using boundary tones, similar to Chichewa (Kanerva 1990; Myers 1996).

scholarly journals Syllabic organization and phonetic indices in German stop-lateral clusters

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stavroula Sotiropoulou ◽  
Adamantios Gafos
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Phrase Boundary ◽  
Word Context ◽  
Initial Cluster ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Coordination Patterns ◽  
Target Words

Using articulatory data from five German speakers, we study how segmental sequences under different syllabic organizations respond to perturbations of phonetic parameters in the segments that compose them. Target words contained stop-lateral clusters /bl, gl, kl, pl/ in a word-initial and a cross-word context and were embedded in carrier phrases with different prosodic boundary strengths, i.e., no phrase boundary versus an utterance phrase boundary preceded the target word in the case of word-initial clusters or separated the consonants in the case of cross-word clusters. For word-initial cluster onsets, we find that increasing the lag between two consonants and C1 stop duration leads to earlier vowel initiation and reduced local timing stability across CV and CCV. Furthermore, as the inter-consonantal lag increases, C2 lateral duration decreases. In contrast, for cross-word clusters, increasing the lag between two consonants does not lead to earlier vowel initiation across CV and C#CV and robust local timing stability is maintained across CV and C#CV. Overall, the findings indicate that the effect of phonetic perturbations on the coordination patterns depends on the syllabic organization superimposed on these clusters.

scholarly journals Gestural coordination at prosodic boundaries and its role for prosodic structure and speech planning processes

2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1658) ◽  
pp. 20130397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Krivokapić
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Multiple Functions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Planning Processes ◽  
Speech Planning ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Important Progress ◽  
Made In

Prosodic structure is a grammatical component that serves multiple functions in the production, comprehension and acquisition of language. Prosodic boundaries are critical for the understanding of the nature of the prosodic structure of language, and important progress has been made in the past decades in illuminating their properties. We first review recent prosodic boundary research from the point of view of gestural coordination. We then go on to tie in this work to questions of speech planning and manual and head movement. We conclude with an outline of a new direction of research which is needed for a full understanding of prosodic boundaries and their role in the speech production process.

Infant-directed speech facilitates lexical learning in adults hearing Chinese: implications for language acquisition

1995 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 703-726 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberta Michnick Golinkoff ◽  
Anthony Alioto
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Lexical Learning ◽  
Western Language ◽  
Chinese And English ◽  
Target Words

ABSTRACTExperiments 1 and 2 examined the effects of infant-directed (ID) speech on adults' ability to learn an individual target word in sentences in an unfamiliar, non-Western language (Chinese). English-speaking adults heard pairs of sentences read by a female, native Chinese speaker in either ID or adult-directed (AD) speech. The pairs of sentences described slides of 10 common objects. The Chinese name for the object (the target word) was placed in an utterance-final position in experiment? (n= 61) and in a medial position in experiment 2 (n= 79). At test, each Chinese target word was presented in isolation in AD speech in a recognition task. Only subjects who heard ID speech with the target word in utterance-final position demonstrated learning of the target words. The results support assertions that ID speech, which tends to put target words in sentence-final position, may assist infants in segmenting and remembering portions of the linguistic stream. In experiment 3 (n= 23), subjects judged whether each of the ID and AD speech samples prepared for experiments ? and 2 were directed to an adult or to an infant. Judgements were above chance for two types of sentence: ID speech with the target word in the final position and AD speech with the target word in a medial position. In addition to indirectly confirming the results of experiments 1 and 2, these findings suggest that at least some of the prosodic features which comprise ID speech in Chinese and English must overlap.

scholarly journals Non-Final Focus Accents in The Speech of Advanced Italian Learners of German

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Paschke ◽  
Barbara Vogt
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Correct Placement ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Focus Condition ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

This study investigates the prosodic marking of focus in non-native German. Ten proficient learners of German with Italian L1 were recorded reading aloud 40 sentences containing mostly non-final focused constituents embedded in an adequate question context. Non-final focus accents in L2 German are difficult for Italian learners to produce, especially in broad focus contexts with de-accentuation of final verb forms (cf. Paschke/Vogt, in press), because their native language has a strong positional requirement of rightmostness. Given that both German and Italian use pitch accents for information structuring, i. e. to highlight important information, a correct placement of focus accents might, however, be favoured by narrow focus contexts in which prosodic prominence has to be assigned to one specific constituent. In addition to this main hypothesis, the study investigated whether additional clues (such as prosodic highlighting of the relevant constituent in the L2 question, a corresponding syntactic and prosodic structure between L1 and L2) might increase the success rate. The data shows that advanced Italian speakers of German L2 correctly realize non-final focus accents in more than half of the narrow focus contexts, but that their success rate is not significantly higher than in the broad focus condition and is not affected by the additional clues provided.

scholarly journals Emfaas ja fookus eesti keeles

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Heete Sahkai ◽  
Meelis Mihkla ◽  
Mari-Liis Kalvik
Keyword(s):  
Fundamental Frequency ◽  
Relative Intensity ◽  
Significant Feature ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Acoustic Correlates ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Sentence Stress ◽  
Frequency Intensity

Artiklis tutvustatakse uurimust, mille eesmärk on selgitada välja lauselõpulist kitsast fookust laiast fookusest eristava emfaatilise primaarse lauserõhu akustilised korrelaadid eesti keeles. Tähenduseristust kandvat emfaasi vaadeldakse ka lause eelviimasel sõnal, kus selle realiseerumist ei mõjuta prosoodilise piiri korrelaadid. Uurimus täiendab varasemat uurimust, milles testiti emfaasi korrelaate piirieelses positsioonis. Uurimuse tulemusena leitakse, et piirieelses positsioonis ebaoluliseks osutunud põhitooniga seotud korrelaadid on mittepiirieelses kontekstis osaliselt olulised. Mõlemas kontekstis on oluline sihtsõna suhteline intensiivsus lauses. Lisaks vaadeldakse, kuidas emfaasi peamiseks korrelaadiks osutunud pikenemine sõnas realiseerub ning suhestub väldet signaliseerivate kestussuhetega jalas. Leitakse, et mittepiirieelses kontekstis toimub pikenemine kestussuhetele vastavalt (esimeses ja teises vältes) või seda suurendades ja vältetunnust võimendades (kolmandas vältes). Piirieelses positsioonis on emfaatiline pikenemine esimeses vältes kestussuhtele vastav, teises ja kolmandas vältes aga suurendab seda.Abstract. Heete Sahkai, Meelis Mihkla, and Mari-Liis Kalvik: Emphasis and focus in Estonian. The paper examines the acoustic correlates of the emphatic nuclear accent that differentiates sentence-final narrow focus from broad focus in Estonian. The emphatic accent is also examined in pre-final position, where it is not affected by a prosodic boundary. The study complements a previous study testing the potential correlates of emphasis in pre-boundary context. The results show that F0-related correlates, which are not significant in final position, are partly significant pre-finally. A significant feature in both contexts is the relative intensity of the emphatic word in the clause. The study confirms lengthening as the primary correlate of emphasis and examines its realisation and interaction with the duration relations in the foot, which are the correlates of the Estonian three-way quantity distinction. The lengthening is mostly found either to correspond to the characteristic duration ratio of the quantity degree, or to increase it.Keywords: Estonian, focus, sentence stress, emphasis, duration, fundamental frequency, intensity, the Estonian quantity

Prosodic parallelism explaining morphophonological variation in German

Linguistics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Wiese ◽  
Augustin Speyer
Keyword(s):  
Target Word ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Linear Model ◽  
Generalized Linear Model ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Chi Square ◽  
Early New High German ◽  
Chi Square Tests

AbstractWords in German show several instances of a seemingly optional schwa-zero alternation, both in relation with inflected forms as well as in the final position of stems and simplex words, as inLarge-scale corpora are used as the main source of evidence for the verification or falsification of the hypothesis. A diverse set of nouns and adverbs involving schwa-zero alternations were studied in appropriate phrasal contexts, both from present-day Standard German and from Early New High German. Based on comprehensive corpus counts, these phrases are tested for the hypothesis of prosodic parallelism. A series of chi square tests and a generalized linear model with mixed effects demonstrate statistically that the prosodic shapes of the target word and its adjacent form are not independent of each other. The focus of the paper is on empirical evidence for

Differences in prosodic phrasing in marking syntax vs. focus: Data from Yanbian Korean

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-150
Author(s):  
Sun-Ah Jun ◽  
Xiannu Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Northeastern Part ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Word Prosody ◽  
Prosodic Boundary

Abstract In studying the effect of syntax and focus on prosodic phrasing, the main issue of investigation has been to explain and predict the location of a prosodic boundary, and not much attention has been given to the nature of prosodic phrasing. In this paper, we offer evidence from intonation patterns of utterances that prosodic phrasing can be formed differently phonologically and phonetically due to its function of marking syntactic structure vs. focus (prominence) in Yanbian Korean, a lexical pitch accent dialect of Korean spoken in the northeastern part of China, just above North Korea. We show that the location of a H tone in syntax-marking Accentual Phrase (AP) is determined by the type of syntactic head, noun or verb (a VP is marked by an AP-initial H while an NP is marked by an AP-final H), while prominence-marking accentual phrasing is cued by AP-initial H. The difference in prosodic phrasing due to its dual function in Yanbian Korean is compared with that of Seoul Korean, and a prediction is made on the possibility of finding such difference in other languages based on the prosodic typology proposed in (Jun, Sun-Ah. 2014b. Prosodic typology: by prominence type, word prosody, and macro-rhythm. In Sun-Ah Jun (ed.), Prosodic Typology II: The Phonology of Intonation and Phrasing. 520–539. Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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