On the phonological status of pitch falls in English and Dutch:

Evidence from semantic judgements

Experimental Studies on Intonation:

Phonetic, Phonological and Psycholinguistic

Aspects of Sentence Prosody,

5-7 January 2009, Potsdam University

Carlos Gussenhoven

Queen Mary, University of London

Outline

Two analyses of pre-nuclear steep falls in English:

1. a falling pitch accent

(Palmer, Halliday, Crystal, O’Connor & Arnold, Gussenhoven, Ladd, Féry, Grabe, Peters, ToDI ...)

2. an interpolation between a high accent and a following boundary L

(Bolinger, Pierrehumbert, MAE-ToBI, GToBI)

Experiment I (Sentence adverbs): The steep fall in ‘Jackknife’ does not define a boundary, unlike the steep fall before low plateau.

Experiment II (Tone Concord): ditto, plus:

the rise of the peak is the interpolation, the fall is the pitch accent

I don’t think she meant to say that

Idon’t think shemeantto say that

L H L L

Time (s)0 2.163

0

80

160

240

320

400

ADDITION, PROCLAIMING, NEUTRAL, STATEMENT, NEW, ..

Semantic consensus

I don’t think she meant to say that

Idon’t think shemeantto say that

L H L L

Time (s)0 2.163

0

80

160

240

320

400

Phonological consensus

• Each tone is a morpheme (almost: Hirschberg & Pierrehumbert 1990); find no semantic evidence for tone grouping.

• L+H*: phonological grouping (MAE-ToBI, GToBI): on-ramp.• H*L: morphological grouping (’British’, ToDI): off-ramp

Some analyses

teaspoon:

Morphology: [ti:] [spu:n] *[ti:s] [ pu:n]

Phonology: /t/ /i:/ /s/ /p/ /u:/ /n/

Diphthongs: /Ii,Uu/; syllables: ?(ti:(s)pu:n) ?(ti:)(spu:n)

Semantic consensus

Areyoureally considering that option

L L H H

Time (s)0 1.682

0

100

200

300

400

500

TESTING, REFERRAL, NOT NEW, INTERROGATIVE, ..

Are you really considering that option?

Phonological consensus

Areyoureally considering that option

L L H H

Time (s)0 1.682

0

100

200

300

400

500

Are you really considering that option?

The Great Divide

British/European: Off-ramp American: On-rampCrystal, Halliday, ToDI, Féry, Bolinger, Pierrehumbert, Grabe, Peters MAE-ToBI

L+H* L- L% L* H- H%

MAE-ToBI vs ToDI

MAE-ToBI

%L H*L L% %L L*H H%

MAE-ToBI vs ToDI

ToDI

1 On-ramp implies one more right-hand boundary than off-ramp: predictions of boundaries.

2 On-ramp implies first half defines identity, off-ramp implies second half defines identity.

Some consequences of LH vs HL

Main features of ToDI

• DISPLACEMENT: Trailing tone of pre-nuclear pitch accents is pronounced rightmost (1984: Partial tone-linking, also: right-alignment)

• CONTINUATION: Morpheme-final tones continue targets (until next morpheme or end of phrase is encountered) (‘double alignment’, 2000, 2004, 2005)

• Pre-nuclear H*LH (cf. O’Connor & Arnold’s Jackknife, 1984)

ToDI

Main features of ToDI

• H*, L* H*L, L*H; prenuclear H*LH(; nuclear H*H) • %L,%H• L%,H%, %• (DOWNSTEP-morpheme)• (L*-prefixation)• (H-prefixation)

ToDI

• and we then kept ALL the bottles that had a dePOSit on them

%L H*L H*L L%

DISPLACEMENTCONTINUATION

CONTINUATION

ToDI

• and we then kept ALL the bottles that had a dePOSit on them

%L H*LH H*L L%

DISPLACEMENTCONTINUATION

CONTINUATION

ToDI

• and did you keep ALL the bottles that had a dePOSit on them

%L H* L*H H%

CONTINUATION

CONTINUATION

ToDI

CONTINUATION

• and did you keep ALL the bottles that had a dePOSit on them

%L H*L L*H H%

ToDI

• and we then kept all the bottles that had a dePOSit on them

%L H* %

CONTINUATION

ToDI

CONTINUATION

maar kep NIET gezegd dat we niet toe moeten naar herverdeling van ARbeid‘But I haven’t said we shouldn’t consider redistribution of labour’(Neelie Smit-Kroes)

%L H*L H*L L%

ToDI’s tritonal prenuclear H*LH

%L H*LH% %L H*L L%

%L H*LH H*L L%

Research question

Does a steep F0 fall from an accented syllable signal an IP-boundary?

MethodologySemantic judgements about F0 contours on two-accent source utterances that are disambiguated by an IP-boundary

Experiment I: English

Verbal adverb vs. sentence adverb

She TREATED the poor man(,) HONESTLYI THOUGHT she responded(,) ODDLYHe NEVER acted(,) STRANGELYHe DEALT with the woman(,) HONESTLY

Experiment I: English

f0 manipulation on durationally hybridized source utterances by female AmE speaker

- Three pitch accents H*L, H*LH and H* (all before H*L L%)- Boundary vs No boundary- %L and %H- Female speaker read eight sentences (two sets of four)- Durational hybrids were created by judicious splicing and cutting of sections in the speech wave form, per segment. - Two sentences used the ‘comma’ source utterances, two the ‘no comma’ source utterances- 12 F0 contours on each hybridized speech files (i.e. only f0 varied)

Experiment I: English

2 x 6 contours

%H%L H*L (L% %L) H*L L%

%H%L H*LH (% %L) H*L L%

%H%L *H ( % %L) H*L L%

Experiment I: English

%L %H

%H%L H*L L% %L H*L L%

%H%L H*L H% %L H*L L%

%H%L *H H*L L%

%H%L H*L H*L L%

%H%L H*LH H*L L%

%H%L *H % %L H*L L%

Experiment I: English

Task

- Pairs of contours: which is more likely to have the comma? (‘1, 2 or neither’); ditto ‘lack’- %L and %H sets of 5 x 6 contour pairs- Sentences and contours Latin-squared- 15 American English subjects (12 vs 3 per order)

Experiment I: English

Your task in this 10-minute experiment is to listen to a number of pairs of sentences and to decide which of the two pronunciations expresses better that there is coherence between the verb and adverb. You do that by checking either the first or the third box. In the following example, the listener judged that the second pronunciation of the sentence more clearly expresses that there is coherence between the verb and the adverb, i.e. that the treatment of his case was honest:

She dealt with him honestly

In the next example, the listener thought that her treatment was honest: 1

She dealt with him honestly

You are always encouraged to make a decision. You will find that ...

She dealt with him honestly

1 0 2

1 0 2

1 0 2

Experiment I: English

Your task in this 10-minute test experiment is to listen to a number of pairs of sentences and to decide which of the two pronunciations expresses the ‘comma intonation’ better. You do that by checking either the first or the third box. In the following example, the listener judged that the second pronunciation of the sentence more clearly expressed the comma than the first:

She dealt with him, honestly

In the next example, the listener thought that the first better expressed the comma:

She dealt with him, honestly

You are always encouraged to make a decision. You will find that often ...

She dealt with him, honestly

1 0 2

1 0 2

1 0 2

Experiment I: English

Experiment I: English

Experiment I: English

Conclusions

1. Steep fall followed by rise (the ‘Jackknife’ of O’Connor & Arnold) does not define a boundary;

2. Off-ramp analyses (British, ToDI) are supported if H*LH is accepted. A rival analysis is L+H*+L followed by H+H*. Neither of these are available in MAE-ToBI.

Experiment I: English

And something needs to be done such that H+H* and H+L* always appear after L+H*+L .

Tone Concord

Experiment II: Dutch

(e.g. Wells 2006, Intonation)

- Identical melodic structure - separated by an IP-boundary

Pitch accents

Tone Concord

Experiment II: Dutch

- Apposition Mr. Evans, the butcher (cf. John the Baptist)

- Reformulation They had about ten, about a dozen

- Optional adverbial Act normally, like William

- Non-restrictive relative clausesHe chose to keep the watch, which was never repaired - ...

Tone Concord

Experiment II: Dutch

- Restrictive apposition Mr. Evans, the butcher (cf. John the Baptist) - Reformulation They had about a dozen, more than ten

- Optional adverbial vs. modal adverb ‘Act normally, like William’ - Non-restrictive relative clauses He chose to keep the watch, which was never repaired

Doe gewoon, zoals Willem

‘Act normally, like William’

vs

Doe gewoon zoals Willem

‘Just act like William’

Two hypotheses

1 No boundary after prenuclear H*LH (like English experiment)

2 The off ramp (=the fall from the peak) represents the pitch accent (and not the on-ramp=the rise to the peak)

Experiment II: Dutch

Two hypotheses

1 No boundary after prenuclear H*LH (like English experiment)

2 The off ramp (=the fall from the peak) represents the pitch accent (and not the on-ramp=the rise to the peak)

Experiment II: Dutch

Semantic difference due to ±bounday (identical melodies)

Semantic difference due to variation in shape of pre-nuclear pitch accent (+boundary)

Identification experiment

Semantic task: meaning modal adverb or otherwise? Female speaker3 ambiguous words2 two sentence lengths6 contours (Praat, f0 manipulation)5-point scale Two counterbalanced orders, reversed scales 5 filler contours20 listeners

Experiment II: Dutch

zonder anderen in ’t café [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] slechts in ’t café

repeated stimulus presentation

doe normaal, zoals Willem [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] doe maar net als Willem

in een file op de snelweg [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] zeker op de snelweg

Experiment II: Dutch

%L H*L L% %L H*L L%

%L H*L H% %L H*L H%

%L L*H % %L L*H H%

Experiment II: Dutch

210180

290

160

200

240

270

250

180 160

165 160

240240

280

%L H*L L% %L H*L L%

%L H*L H% %L H*L H%

%L L*H % %L L*H H%

210180

290

175

270

250

180 160

165 160

240

240

280

190

%L H*L H*L L%

%L H*LH H*L H%

%L L*H L*H H%

No boundary -> Modal meaningBoundary -> Concord

Experiment II: Dutch

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

5.0

Short Long

Mod

al m

eani

ng Boundary

NoBoundary

Hypothesis

L*H Long

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

gBoundary

No Boundary

H*L Short

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

Boundary

No Boundary

H*LH Short

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

Boundary

No boundary

L*H Short

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

Boundary

No Boundary

H*L Long

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

Boundary

No boundary

H*LH Long

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

Boundary

No Boundary

‘She’s surely there?’ is semantically incongruous

Identity of pitch accent

Experiment II: Dutch

%L H*L % %L H*L L% % L+H* L- % L+H* L- L%

On-ramp (ToBI) vs Off-ramp (ToDI)

%L H*L % %L H*L L%

% L+H* L- L% % L+H* L- L%

Experiment II: Dutch

%L H* % %L H*L L%

% L+H* L- L% % L+H* L- L%

%H H*L % %L H*L L%

%H H* L- L% % L+H* L- L%

hij zit alleen in het café

hij zit alleen met die man in het café

%H H*L % %L H*L L%

%L H* % %L H*L L%

Time (s)0 2.95009

100

400

Time (s)0 2.95009

100

400

%L H*L % %L H*L L%

Time (s)0 2.464

100

400

Freq

uenc

y (H

z)

Non-identity -> Modal meaningIdentity -> Concord

Experiment II: Dutch

Hypothesis

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

4.0

4.5

5.0

Short Long

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

%H H*L

%L H*

%L H*L

Experiment II: Dutch

Prenuclear Rise vs %H-Fall vs %L-Fall

Long

0

0.51

1.5

22.5

3

3.54

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

%H H*L % H*LL%

%L H* % H*L L%

%L H*L % H*L L%

??He is aLONE with that man in the PUB

‘alone’ has shifted to ‘only’

Prenuclear Rise vs %H-Fall vs %L-Fall

Short

0

0.5

11.5

2

2.5

33.5

4

4.5

alleen gewoon vast

Mo

dal

mea

nin

g

%H H*L % H*LL%

%L H* % H*L L%

%L H*L % H*L L%

Experiment II: Dutch

Conclusions

• Pre-nuclear H*LH exists (Jackknife has no boundary after first peak)

• An accentual peak is a fall, not a rise.• Listeners respond sensibly to meaning identification task.

•

Experiment II: Dutch

1. Two meaning identification tasks, one for English and one for Dutch, show that pre-nuclear steep falls exist, analysed as H*LH

2. Tone Concord for a pitch peak is perceived when a fall precedes, not when a rise precedes. This suggests a peak is (L) H*L, not L+H* (L).

3. The morphological and phonological structure of the intonation of West Germanic is an under-researched field.

Conclusion

Thank you for your attention