scholarly journals Expanding the gestural model of lexical tone: evidence from two dialects of Serbian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Karlin
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Articulatory Phonology ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
Timing Information ◽  
Bearing Unit ◽  
Phonetic Alignment ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
C Center

Featural and gestural models of tone differ on the degree to which they include timing information in the representation. However, both assume some kind of simultaneity between tones and their tone-bearing units, where featural models emphasize the role of acoustic relationships and gestural models instead emphasize articulatory coordination. We present the results of two acoustic production studies on two dialects of Serbian, a lexical pitch accent language. In the Belgrade dialect, pitch accents are aligned relatively late in the tone-bearing unit, while in the Valjevo dialect, pitch accents are phonetically retracted, sometimes into the preceding syllable. We varied the syllable onsets of tone-bearing units in falling (experiment 1) and rising (experiment 2) pitch accents, and measured the effects on F0 contours. Despite these differences in phonetic alignment, the phonological system is the same in both dialects. We argue that this apparent mismatch between the phonology and phonetics can be expressed straightforwardly in the Articulatory Phonology framework by allowing tone gestures to coordinate with other gestures in all the ways that segmental gestures can, rather than restricting tone to c-center coordination.

scholarly journals Expanding the gestural model of lexical tone: evidence from two dialects of Serbian

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Karlin
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Articulatory Phonology ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
Timing Information ◽  
Bearing Unit ◽  
Phonetic Alignment ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
C Center

Featural and gestural models of tone differ on the degree to which they include timing information in the representation. However, both assume some kind of simultaneity between tones and their tone-bearing units, where featural models emphasize the role of acoustic relationships and gestural models instead emphasize articulatory coordination. We present the results of two acoustic production studies on two dialects of Serbian, a lexical pitch accent language. In the Belgrade dialect, pitch accents are aligned relatively late in the tone-bearing unit, while in the Valjevo dialect, pitch accents are phonetically retracted, sometimes into the preceding syllable. We varied the syllable onsets of tone-bearing units in falling (experiment 1) and rising (experiment 2) pitch accents, and measured the effects on F0 contours. Despite these differences in phonetic alignment, the phonological system is the same in both dialects. We argue that this apparent mismatch between the phonology and phonetics can be expressed straightforwardly in the Articulatory Phonology framework by allowing tone gestures to coordinate with other gestures in all the ways that segmental gestures can, rather than restricting tone to c-center coordination.

scholarly journals The Role of Prosodic Breaks and Pitch Accents in Grouping Words during On-line Sentence Processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 2447-2467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Bögels ◽  
Herbert Schriefers ◽  
Wietske Vonk ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
On Line ◽  
Group Words ◽  
Pitch Accents

The present study addresses the question whether accentuation and prosodic phrasing can have a similar function, namely, to group words in a sentence together. Participants listened to locally ambiguous sentences containing object- and subject-control verbs while ERPs were measured. In Experiment 1, these sentences contained a prosodic break, which can create a certain syntactic grouping of words, or no prosodic break. At the disambiguation, an N400 effect occurred when the disambiguation was in conflict with the syntactic grouping created by the break. We found a similar N400 effect without the break, indicating that the break did not strengthen an already existing preference. This pattern held for both object- and subject-control items. In Experiment 2, the same sentences contained a break and a pitch accent on the noun following the break. We argue that the pitch accent indicates a broad focus covering two words [see Gussenhoven, C. On the limits of focus projection in English. In P. Bosch & R. van der Sandt (Eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives. Cambridge: University Press, 1999], thus grouping these words together. For object-control items, this was semantically possible, which led to a “good-enough” interpretation of the sentence. Therefore, both sentences were interpreted equally well and the N400 effect found in Experiment 1 was absent. In contrast, for subject-control items, a corresponding grouping of the words was impossible, both semantically and syntactically, leading to processing difficulty in the form of an N400 effect and a late positivity. In conclusion, accentuation can group words together on the level of information structure, leading to either a semantically “good-enough” interpretation or a processing problem when such a semantic interpretation is not possible.

scholarly journals Perception in Black and White: Effects of Intonational Variables and Filtering Conditions on Sociolinguistic Judgments With Implications for ASR

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole R. Holliday
Keyword(s):  
Speech Recognition ◽  
Speech Synthesis ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Social Judgments ◽  
Black And White ◽  
African American Language ◽  
Focus Marking ◽  
Computational Systems ◽  
Pitch Accents

This study tests the effects of intonational contours and filtering conditions on listener judgments of ethnicity to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding on how prosody influences these judgments, with implications for austomatic speech recognition systems as well as speech synthesis. In a perceptual experiment, 40 American English listeners heard phrase-long clips which were controlled for pitch accent type and focus marking. Each clip contained either two H* (high) or two L+H* (low high) pitch accents and a L-L% (falling) boundary tone, and had also previously been labelled for broad or narrow focus. Listeners rated clips in two tasks, one with unmodified stimuli and one with stimuli lowpass filtered at 400 Hz, and were asked to judge whether the speaker was “Black” or “White”. In the filtered condition, tokens with the L+H* pitch accent were more likely to be rated as “Black”, with an interaction such that broad focus enhanced this pattern, supporting earlier findings that listeners may perceive African American Language as having more variation in possible pitch accent meanings. In the unfiltered condition, tokens with the L+H* pitch accent were less likely to be rated as Black, with no effect of focus, likely due to the fact that listeners relied more heavily on available segmental information in this condition. These results enhance our understanding of cues listeners rely on in making social judgments about speakers, especially in ethnic identification and linguistic profiling, by highlighting perceptual differences due to listening environment as well as predicted meaning of specific intonational contours. They also contribute to our understanding of the role of how human listeners interpret meaning within a holistic context, which has implications for the construction of computational systems designed to replicate the properties of natural language. In particular, they have important applicability to speech synthesis and speech recognition programs, which are often limited in their capacities due to the fact that they do not make such holistic sociolinguistic considerations of the meanings of input or output speech.

Postfocal Downstep in German

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Kügler ◽  
Caroline Féry
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
German Journal ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Role Of Information

This article is a follow-up study of Féry and Kügler (2008. Pitch accent scaling on given, new and focused constituents in German. Journal of Phonetics, 36, 680–703). It reports on an experiment of the F0 height of potential pitch accents in the postfocal region of German sentences and addresses in this way an aspect of the influence of information structure on the intonation of sentences that was left open in the previous article. The results of the experiment showed that, when several constituents are located in this position, they are often in a downstep relation, but are rarely upstepped. In 37% of the cases, the pitch accents are only realized dynamically and there is no down- or upstepping. We interpret these results as evidence that postfocal constituents are phrased independently. The data examined speak against a model of postfocal intonation in which postfocal phrasing is eliminated and all accents are reduced to zero. Instead, the pitch accents are often present, although reduced. Moreover, the facts support the existence of prosodic phrasing of the postfocal constituents; the postfocal position implies an extremely compressed register, but no dephrasing or systematic complete deaccentuation of all pitch accents. We propose adopting a model of German intonation in which prosodic phrasing is determined by syntactic structure and cannot be changed by information structure. The role of information structure in prosody is limited to changes in the register relationship of the different parts of the sentence. Prefocally, there is no or only little register compression because of givenness. Postfocally, register compression is the rule. A model of intonation must take this asymmetry into account.

scholarly journals Lexical encoding of L2 tones: The role of L1 stress, pitch accent and intonation

2014 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bettina Braun ◽  
Tobias Galts ◽  
Barış Kabak
Keyword(s):  
Mandarin Chinese ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
First Language ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Word Prosody ◽  
Mismatch Condition ◽  
Complete Match

Native language prosodic structure is known to modulate the processing of non-native suprasegmental information. It has been shown that native speakers of French, a language without lexical stress, have difficulties storing non-native stress contrasts. We investigated whether the ability to store lexical tone (as in Mandarin Chinese) also depends on the first language (L1) prosodic structure and, if so, how. We tested participants from a stress language (German), a language without word stress (French), a language with restricted lexical tonal contrasts (Japanese), and Mandarin Chinese controls. Furthermore, German has a rich intonational structure, while French and Japanese dispose of fewer utterance-level pitch contrasts. The participants learnt associations between disyllabic non-words (4 tonal contrasts) and objects and indicated whether picture–word pairs matched with what they had learnt (complete match, segmental or tonal mismatch conditions). In the tonal mismatch condition, the Mandarin Chinese controls had the highest sensitivity, followed by the German participants. The French and Japanese participants showed no sensitivity towards these tonal contrasts. Utterance-level prosody is hence better able to predict success in second language (L2) tone learning than word prosody.

scholarly journals USING PROSODY TO PREDICT UPCOMING REFERENTS IN THE L1 AND THE L2

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Anouschka Foltz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Exposure Period ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Resource Deficit ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

Abstract While monolingual speakers can use contrastive pitch accents to predict upcoming referents, bilingual speakers do not always use this cue predictively in their L2. The current study examines the role of recent exposure for predictive processing in native German (L1) second language learners of English (L2). In Experiment 1, participants followed instructions to click on two successive objects, for example, Click on the red carrot/duck. Click on the green/GREEN carrot (where CAPS indicate a contrastive L + H* accent). Participants predicted a repeated noun following a L + H* accent in the L1, but not in the L2, where processing was delayed. Experiment 2 shows that after an exposure period with highly consistent prosodic cues, bilinguals engaged in predictive processing in both their L1 and L2. However, inconsistent prosodic cues showed different effects on bilinguals’ L1 and L2 predictive processing. The results are discussed in terms of exposure-based and resource-deficit models of processing.

Affect and iconicity in phonological variation

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Annette D'Onofrio ◽  
Penelope Eckert
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Sound Symbolism ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
Phonological Variation ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
Basic Level

Abstract The study of iconic properties of language has been marginalized in linguistics, with the assumption that iconicity, linked with expressivity, is external to the grammar. Yet iconicity plays an essential role in sociolinguistic variation. At a basic level, repetition and phonetic intensification can intensify the indexicality of variables. Iconicity plays a further role in variation in the form of sound symbolism, linking properties of sounds with attributes or objects. Production studies have shown some phonological variables exhibiting sound symbolism, particularly in the expression of affect. In some cases, the observation of sound symbolism has been largely interpretive. But in others, stylistic variability as a function of speaker affect has provided empirical evidence of iconicity. This article examines the role of iconicity and performativity in transcending the limits of reference, reviews iconicity in production studies, and provides experimental evidence that sound symbolism influences how listeners attribute affect to linguistic variation. (Variation, iconicity, affect)

scholarly journals The role of spectro-temporal fine structure cues in lexical-tone discrimination for French and Mandarin listeners

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 877-882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurianne Cabrera ◽  
Feng-Ming Tsao ◽  
Dan Gnansia ◽  
Josiane Bertoncini ◽  
Christian Lorenzi
Keyword(s):  
Fine Structure ◽  
Temporal Fine Structure ◽  
Lexical Tone ◽  
Tone Discrimination

scholarly journals The intonation of the Q-marking construction: A comparison of Hungarian and Slovenian

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-397
Author(s):  
LOUISE MYCOCK
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Linguistic Variation ◽  
To Receive ◽  
Pitch Accents

This paper examines the Q-marking construction: an interrogative construction in which a question phrase takes scope over a higher clause even though it appears in a lower clause. In this construction, the scope of a question phrase is extended by the presence of another word, the Q-marker, in a higher clause. While the syntax of this construction has been described and analysed in a number of works, its intonation is yet to receive commensurate attention. This paper presents data from two unrelated languages in which the Q-marking construction can be used to form questions: Hungarian and Slovenian. Data show that while the Q-marker shares properties with question words in Hungarian (they bear the same pitch accent), in Slovenian the Q-marker and question words bear distinct pitch accents. Furthermore, in Hungarian a direct intonational link exists between the Q-marker and a question phrase whose scope is extended, rather than an indirect one between the Q-marker and the entire lower clause in which the question phrase appears. The Slovenian data are compatible with the existence of either an indirect or a direct intonational link. These findings reveal hitherto unidentified dimensions of cross-linguistic variation, for which any analysis of the Q-marking construction must account.

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