18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1 Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?...
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Transcript of 18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1 Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?...
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1
Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?Individual differences
in signalling pitch accent category
Oliver NiebuhrMariapaola D’Imperio
Barbara Gili FivelaFrancesco Cangemi
Special Session “Shapes and tones – Towards a more holistic perspective in intonation research”
17th International Congress of Phonetic Science,Hong Kong, China, August 2011
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 2
• Individual speakers employ different production strategies towards a similar acoustic/perceptual goal.
• Talker variability is at least partly determined by anatomical features but linguistic factors such as dialectal and speech community membership give rise to noticeable variation.
• The relative strength of perceptually trading acoustic cues can differ from speaker to speaker, at least for segmental variability (Jonhnson, 1997).
• But what about prosodic variability? What about tonal alignment?
Introduction
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 3
• Strict segmental anchoring (Ladd et al. 1999): tonal targets are timed to occur at a fixed distance from segmental boundaries irrespective of rate changes and/or syllabic structure differences for a specific pitch accent type.
• If tonal alignment is variable on an individual basis, can it be in a trade-off relationship with an alternative cue to the same pitch accent category? What about dynamic cues, such as “accent shape”?
• But individual variability in alignment production is rarely pointed out.
• Here the issue is investigated through a database for three language varieties (Standard German, Pisa and Neapolitan Italian) and three pairs of well studied pitch accent contrasts.
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 4
Method
• 3 well-established PA contrasts:
• 10 short A-B dialogues
H+L* vs. H* in Standard Northern German, L+H* vs. L*+H in Neapolitan Italian and H* vs. H*+L in Pisa Italian
• Recordings made in sound-treated rooms at the Universities of Kiel, Naples, and Pisa.
• The German dialogues were read by 35 speakers; the Italian recordings included 17 Neapolitan and 20 Pisa speakers.
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 5
German intonation contrast
• Two types of nuclear pitch accents: ‘Early Peak’ vs. ‘Medial Peak’ or H+L* vs. H* according to Grice and Baumann (2002, GToBI)
• Well-known from the seminal experiments of Kohler (1987), and numerous other production and perception studies– H+L*= F0 peak reached before accented-vowel onset, F0 falls
into vowel– H* = F0 peak reached 30-60 after accented vowel-onset, falls
sets in before vowel offsetKohler (1991:341) Grice and Baumann (2002:25)
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 6
Results for German I
• Intonation labels were cross-checked by two other trained prosodic labellers
• H+L* and H* productions were first analyzed in terms of overall mean values (x) and standard deviations (s) for– F0 peak range (semitones, st)– Shape index (duration rise / duration fall)– Peak alignment relative to accented vowel onset
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 7
Results for German II
t
F0
Number of cases = 525
C V:x= -29 ms, s=55 ms
x= 68 ms, s=78 ms
Accented [CV:] syllable
H+L*Shape index: x=1.31, s=0.33
H*Shape index: x=0.83, s=0.25
(nuclear, voiced initial syllable of disyllabic noun, followed byvoiced CVC syllable + 2 unaccented syllables until end of phrase)
x= 10.5 st,s= 1.8 st
x= 10.6 st,s= 1.7 st
• Mean alignment values are congruent with those of previous studies.
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 8
• BUT: individual production patterns blur this picture– (1) Across all 35 speakers, peaks are not solidly anchored
relative to segmental boundary. Rather they form two alignment continua.
– (2) The alignment continua of H+L* and H* overlap substantially.
• H* peaks could be aligned before the accented-vowel onset (up to 100ms earlier than H+L* peaks)
• H+L* peaks could occur after the vowel onset.
– Trade-off between peak alignment and shape index, reflected in a highly significantly negative correlation (r= -0.72; p<0.001)
- align distance + align distance
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 9
Results for German IV– Based on this trade-off…– 5 speakers showed clearly different alignment before (H+L*) or
after (H*) the vowel onset.
Shapers
Aligners
t test shape: p<0.001; t test alignment: p<0.001
– For 5 other speakers, alignment was completely overlapping but showed strong shape differences…
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 10
• Nuclear, focus interrogative• Peak aligned around accented
syllable offset
• Nuclear, narrow focus declarative
• Peak aligned around accented syllable onset
Neapolitan Italian intonation contrast L+H* vs L*+H
Their shape and function have been established by means of analyses in production and perception (e.g., D’Imperio 2000,
D’Imperio, 2002, Petrone, 2008)
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 11
• Considerable inter-speaker differences in peak alignment.
• A set of 6 speakers made little or no use of systematic alignment greater shape differences
Results for Neapolitan Italian
Alignment differences between L+H* and L*+H by speaker
Discussion & Conclusion
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 12
• When viewed superficially in terms of overall mean values, our results replicate previous findings on peak alignment in differently timed pitch accent movements.
• However, when broken down into the individual patterns, the clearly bimodal production picture appears to be blurred.
• Peak alignment relative to vowel onset forms a continuum in all three varieties under investigation, if individual patterns are taken into account.
• Also, systematic alignment is either in a trade-off relationship with peak shape (as in German and in Neapolitan) or in an enhancing relationship (as in Pisa).
Discussion & Conclusion
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 13
• Future studies will determine, if the production strategies are correlated with indexical features, i.e. in our data female speakers are mostly “shapers”.
• Studying the production and perception of intonational cues must be complemented by a closer look at talker variability, in addition to variety induced variability.
• Only perception studies will be able to determine whether tonal target alignment can be compensated for or even substituted by more dynamic accentual features, such as peak and rise/fall shape.
18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 14
Thank you for your attention