Constraints on the usage of verbal Brazilian portuguese - Evidence from a spoken corpus

The verbal negation system of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) presents three forms: preverbal, double and postverbal negation, as can be seen in following examples: *MIC: [91] mas / Michael / eu não falo nesse sentido // (ii) *DOM: [101] cês nũ lêem isso mais não // (iii) *RUT: [220] participa não / minha filha //. The goal of this paper is to investigate whether there is any kind of prosodic-informational restriction to the distribution and use of the above mentioned negation forms in BP through the spontaneous speech corpus C-ORAL-BRASIL BRASIL (Raso & Mello, 2012). Through the analysis of data from C-ORAL-BRASIL, we propose that double and postverbal negation can only occur in illocutionary information units (COM, CMM, COB); whereas preverbal negation has free distribution, occurring in both illocutionary and non-illocutionary textual units. This indicates that non-canonical negation forms depend on illocutionary force in order to be fully realized.

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Constraints on the usage of verbal negation in Brazilian portuguese– Evidence from a spoken corpus

Káñina ◽

10.15517/rk.v40i4.30230 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 40 (4) ◽

pp. 123

Author(s):

Luis Filipe Lima e Silva ◽

Heliana Mello

Keyword(s):

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Illocutionary Force ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Free Distribution

The verbal negation system of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) presents three forms: preverbal, double and postverbal negation, as can be seen in the following examples: *MIC: [91] mas / Michael / eunãofalonessesentido // (ii) *DOM: [101] cêsnũlêemissomaisnão // (iii) *RUT: [220] participanão / minhafilha //. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is any kind of prosodic-informational restriction to the distribution and use of the above-mentioned negation forms in BP through the spontaneous speech corpus C-ORAL-BRASIL BRASIL (Raso& Mello, 2012). Through the analysis of the data collected from C-ORAL-BRASIL, we propose that double and postverbal negation can only occur in illocutionary information units (COM, CMM, COB), whereas preverbal negation has free distribution, occurring in both illocutionary and non-illocutionary textual units. This indicates that non-canonical negation forms depend on illocutionary force in order to be fully realized.

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The definition of the TOPIC within Language into Act Theory and its identification in spontaneous speech corpora

Revue Romane ◽

10.1075/rro.00005.cre ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 53 (1) ◽

pp. 30-62

Author(s):

Emanuela Cresti ◽

Massimo Moneglia

Keyword(s):

American English ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Illocutionary Force ◽

Specific Function ◽

Information Unit ◽

Speech Corpora ◽

Definition Of ◽

Good Percentage

Abstract The paper presents the definition of the TOPIC information unit within the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT) and the prosodic and informational criteria used for its recovery in spontaneous speech corpora: Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and American English. The TOPIC develops the specific function of field of application of the illocutionary force accomplished by the COMMENT unit, it is performed through a prefix prosodic unit and precedes the Comment. The TOPIC must be coherent with the set of requirements determined by the illocutionary force of the Comment and adequate to the speaker-addressee relation. TOPIC mostly correlates in spoken corpora with NP and ADVP and must be functionally distinguished from “postponed Topic” (APPENDIX in the L-ACT framework). However, corpora also show a good percentage of modal expressions filling its prosodic and distributional conditions.

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Topic unit detection in spontaneous speech

CHIMERA Revista de Corpus de Lenguas Romances y Estudios Lingüísticos ◽

10.15366/chimera2020.7.004 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 69-106

Author(s):

Frederico Amorim Cavalcante ◽

Tommaso Raso ◽

Giulia Bossaglia ◽

Maryualê Mittmann ◽

Bruno Rocha

Keyword(s):

Information Structure ◽

Kappa Statistic ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Brazilian Portuguese ◽

Kappa Coefficient ◽

Rater Agreement ◽

Substantial Agreement ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Information Unit ◽

Theoretical Issues

This paper deals with an inter-annotator agreement test involving the identification of the information unit of Topic as defined within the framework of the Language into Act Theory (L-AcT). Fleiss’s kappa statistic was used to measure the agreement among the four annotators who took part in the test. The data used was sampled from C-ORAL-BRASIL II, a spontaneous speech corpus of Brazilian Portuguese. The paper begins by outlining of the theoretical underpinnings of L-AcT, dedicating special attention to aspects directly related to the notion of Topic. Section 2 presents the pilot test and discusses methodological and theoretical issues that were relevant for the design of the protocol that was eventually used in the actual test. Sections 3 and 4 deal with the test, its protocol and results (the kappa coefficient for the general agreement was 0.79, which by usual standards represents a substantial agreement). Section 5 first provides a brief review of a few studies conducted according to other frameworks which have dealt with inter-rater agreement on the annotation of information structure categories. Finally, the errors observed in the test are analyzed qualitatively.

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UNPREPARED READING AS A TYPE OF SPONTANEOUS SPEECH (on Signs of Spontaneity in Reading in a Non-Native Language)

Вестник Пермского университета Российская и зарубежная филология ◽

10.17072/2073-6681-2021-2-36-46 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 36-46

Author(s):

Сhunxia Kong ◽

Keyword(s):

Native Language ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Individual Characteristics ◽

Speech Sounds ◽

Source Text ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Integral Characteristics ◽

The Individual ◽

Whole Word

The article discusses unprepared reading in a non-native language and shows it to have all the signs of spontaneity that are traditionally considered integral characteristics of any spontaneous speech: hesitation pauses, both physical (ɭ) and filled with non-speech sounds (uh, m-m), word breaks, reading the whole word or part of it by syllables, vocalization of a consonant, and so forth. The material for the analysis included 40 monologues of reading the story by M. Zoshchenko Fantasy Shirt and a non-plot excerpt from V. Korolenko’s story The Blind Musician recorded from 20 Chinese informants. All the monologues are included in the block of Russian interfering speech of the Chinese as part of the monologic speech corpus Balanced Annotated Text Library. As the analysis showed, it is more often that there is not one sign of spontaneity but a whole complex of such signs, and together they fill hesitation pauses, help the speaker to control the quality of speech or correct what was said, etc. In addition, the occurrence of various signs of spontaneity in the course of unprepared reading is closely related to the individual characteristics of the speaker/reader. In general, we have found that there are more signs of spontaneity in the speech of men (3,244 cases; 40.7 %) than in the speech of women (2,049; 27.7 %), in the speech of informants with a lower level of proficiency in Russian B2 (2,993; 37.9 %) than in the speech of informants with a higher level C1 (2,300; 30.8 %), in the speech of extroverts (1,521; 38 %) than in the speech of ambiverts (1,694; 35,2 %) and introverts (2,078; 31,7 %). As to the type of the source text, there turned out to be more signs of spontaneity in monologues of reading a plot text than in monologues of reading a non-plot text (3,031; 40.3 vs 2,283; 31 %). The paper concludes that reading should be recognized as a spontaneous type of speech activity.

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Configuraciones tonales de frases entonativas en enunciados aseverativos del español de la Ciudad de México

Anuario de Letras Lingüística y Filología ◽

10.19130/iifl.adel.2020.24874 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 117-141

Author(s):

Alberto Rodríguez Márquez

Keyword(s):

Social Networks ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

The Other ◽

Prosodic Features ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Data Set ◽

Other Hand ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Speech Data ◽

Intonational Phrases

The objective of this paper is to describe the prosodic features of the final intonation contour of minor intonational phrases (ip) and the tonemes of major intonational phrases (IP) in Mexico City’s Spanish variety. The speech data was taken from a spontaneous speech corpus made from speakers from two social networks: neighborhood and labor. Final intonation contours of ip show a predominantly rising movement. These contours are generally produced with greater length in the last syllable of the ip, which represents the most significant difference between both networks in the case of oxitone endings. On the other hand, tonemes are predominantly descendant, although the circumflex accent has an important number of cases within the data set. Tonemes produced by the neighborhood network are produced with larger length than those from the labor network.

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Phonetic marking of stance in a collaborative-task spontaneous-speech corpus

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America ◽

10.1121/1.4877545 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 135 (4) ◽

pp. 2295-2295

Author(s):

Valerie Freeman ◽

Gina A. Levow ◽

Richard Wright

Keyword(s):

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Collaborative Task

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Going beyond F0: The acquisition of Mandarin tones

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000920000239 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Nari RHEE ◽

Aoju CHEN ◽

Jianjing KUANG

Keyword(s):

Computational Modelling ◽

Spontaneous Speech ◽

Speech Corpus ◽

Present Evidence ◽

Tone Production ◽

Adult Level ◽

Spectral Cues ◽

The Difference ◽

Mandarin Tones ◽

Mandarin Tone

Abstract Using a semi-spontaneous speech corpus, we present evidence from computational modelling of tonal productions from Mandarin-speaking children (4- to 11-years old) and adults, showing that children exceed the adult-level tonal distinction at the age of 7 to 8 years using F0 cues, but do not reach the high adult-level distinction using spectral cues even at the age of 10 to 11 years. The difference in the developmental curves of F0 and spectral cues suggests that, in Mandarin tone production, secondary cues continue to develop even after the mastery of primary cues.

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