Prosodic structure and information structure

2016 ◽  
pp. 164-188
Author(s):  
Daniel Büring
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Prosodic Structure

scholarly journals Generating Tailored, Comparative Descriptions with Contextually Appropriate Intonation

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael White ◽  
Robert A. J. Clark ◽  
Johanna D. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
User Preferences ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Generation Process ◽  
Expert Evaluation ◽  
Unit Selection ◽  
Prosodic Structures ◽  
Prosody Prediction ◽  
Surface Realization

Generating responses that take user preferences into account requires adaptation at all levels of the generation process. This article describes a multi-level approach to presenting user-tailored information in spoken dialogues which brings together for the first time multi-attribute decision models, strategic content planning, surface realization that incorporates prosody prediction, and unit selection synthesis that takes the resulting prosodic structure into account. The system selects the most important options to mention and the attributes that are most relevant to choosing between them, based on the user model. Multiple options are selected when each offers a compelling trade-off. To convey these trade-offs, the system employs a novel presentation strategy which straightforwardly lends itself to the determination of information structure, as well as the contents of referring expressions. During surface realization, the prosodic structure is derived from the information structure using Combinatory Categorial Grammar in a way that allows phrase boundaries to be determined in a flexible, data-driven fashion. This approach to choosing pitch accents and edge tones is shown to yield prosodic structures with significantly higher acceptability than baseline prosody prediction models in an expert evaluation. These prosodic structures are then shown to enable perceptibly more natural synthesis using a unit selection voice that aims to produce the target tunes, in comparison to two baseline synthetic voices. An expert evaluation and f0 analysis confirm the superiority of the generator-driven intonation and its contribution to listeners' ratings.

scholarly journals The intonation of Italian verbless exclamatives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizia Sorianello
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Speech Corpus ◽  
Grammatical Subject ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Subject

The present study aims to explore the prosodic properties of Italian verbless exclamatives (VEs), particular sentence structures without wh-quantifier and copula. A speech corpus formed by 250 VEs uttered by five subjects of a Southern variety of Italian was analyzed. The experimental results proved that VEs have a marked prosodic structure typically made up by two opposed constituents. The preposed predicative phrase is characterized by a salient intonation contour, while the grammatical subject is marginalized and shows a monotonous f0 pattern. The information structure is fixed too: the predicative constituent carries the new information, thus contrasting with the subject that expresses a given content.

Additive particles, prosodic structure and focus sensitivity in Hungarian

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kata Balogh ◽  
Corinna Langer
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
General Level ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Sensitive Analysis ◽  
Association With Focus ◽  
Additive Particles ◽  
Additive Particle ◽  
Focus Marking ◽  
Standard Semantic

Abstract The main aim of this article is to investigate the prosody-information structure interface in the analysis of the Hungarian additive particle is ‘also, too’. We present a prosodic study of narratives, collected through guided elicitation, and provide a prosodic basis for a focus-based analysis of is. Standard formal semantic approaches to the interpretation of additive particles regard additive particles as focus sensitive, hence the associate of the particle is focal and the focus interpretation (in terms of alternatives) is a significant part in its semantics. This view is considered crosslinguistically valid, although the discussion mostly concerns English. In Hungarian, the focus sensitivity of the additive particle is not directly transparent and needs more elaboration. In the relevant literature, the issue of focus marking with respect to the additive particle is has been insufficiently studied or merely stipulated. In this article, we argue for the importance of a more elaborate study of the prosody-information structure interface in the analysis of Hungarian additive particles. Accordingly, we provide data and its analysis to support our core argument and claims. Our study contributes to the overall understanding and analysis of is and to the general claims about focus marking and focus types in Hungarian. We aim to complement the standard semantic analyses by providing a prosodic analysis supporting the focus-sensitive analysis of is instead of merely stipulating an association with focus. On a more general level, we show that the various readings of additive particles can be explained by taking the prosodic patterns of the relevant constructions into account.

Topic and Focus Marking in Chinese

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yiya Chen ◽  
Peppina Po-lun Lee ◽  
Haihua Pan
Keyword(s):  
Range Expansion ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Pitch Range ◽  
Chinese Dialects ◽  
Focus Marking ◽  
Topical Information

This chapter reviews how the two important notions of information structure—topic and focus—are encoded in Chinese. It first describes the properties of syntactic constructions (e.g.shi/shi . . . de, lian–dou/ye) and semantic particles (e.g.cai, jiu, dou, and zhi) for focus marking. It then discusses how Chinese, a topic-prominent language, conveys topical information via different structures such as base-generated topics, dangling topics, and moved topics. Finally, it provides an overview of how prosodic structure and prominence cues (e.g. pitch register raising, pitch range expansion, and lengthening) complement and enhance focus and topic marking in a variety of Chinese dialects, and how such prosodic reflexes of information structure are constrained by their characteristic sound structures. Lacunae for the studies of focus and topic in Chinese are also identified as important questions for future research.

A Political Economy Model of a Research University

2009 ◽  
pp. 132-143
Author(s):  
K. Sonin ◽  
I. Khovanskaya
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Research University ◽  
Hiring Decisions ◽  
Voting Rules ◽  
Economy Model ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Optimal Incentives

Hiring decisions are typically made by committees members of which have different capacity to estimate the quality of candidates. Organizational structure and voting rules in the committees determine the incentives and strategies of applicants; thus, construction of a modern university requires a political structure that provides committee members and applicants with optimal incentives. The existing political-economic model of informative voting typically lacks any degree of variance in the organizational structure, while political-economic models of organization typically assume a parsimonious information structure. In this paper, we propose a simple framework to analyze trade-offs in optimal subdivision of universities into departments and subdepartments, and allocation of political power.

On the Information Structure of the Hungarian Sentence

2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ferenc Kiefer
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure

Informed consent: Towards improved lay-friendliness of patient information sheets

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-211
Author(s):  
Morten Pilegaard ◽  
Hanne Berg Ravn
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Ethical Standards ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Explorative Study ◽  
Microsoft Word ◽  
Text Production ◽  
Linguistic Intervention ◽  
Set Up

Regional research ethics committee (REC) members have voiced a need for the linguistic improvement of informed consent documents to ensure duly informed consent and to ease committee deliberation. We have little knowledge of what elements of language use hamper comprehension, or of the extent of medical researchers’ appreciation of this problem and their willingness to accept intervention. This qualitative, explorative study proposes an intervention design and tests its feasibility and acceptability. Semi-structured interviews with potential REC applicants informed a linguistic intervention benchmarked against existing guidelines, mandated locally and nationally, and then evaluated quantitatively in a semi-controlled set-up and qualitatively via questionnaires. Potential applicants professed the psychological acceptability of linguistic intervention. The intervention comprised a downloadable Microsoft Word template outlining information structure, a detailed guideline offering advice for each move and self-selected linguistic screening. It was used by 14 applicants and had a measurable effect on REC deliberation time and approval rates. The intervention instruments overall made it easier for applicants to produce informed consent documents meeting prescribed ethical standards concerning lay-friendliness. In conclusion, it was found that linguistic intervention is relevant, feasible and psychologically acceptable to REC applicants; it aids their text production process and seems to enhance the lay-friendliness of these texts.

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