Wokshop on developing an International

Prosodic Alphabet (IPrA) within the AM

framework

SunSunSunSun----Ah JunAh JunAh JunAh Jun, UCLA

JosJosJosJoséééé Ignacio HualdeIgnacio HualdeIgnacio HualdeIgnacio Hualde, University of Illinois at

Urbana-Champaign

Pilar PrietoPilar PrietoPilar PrietoPilar Prieto, ICREA – Universitat Pompeu Fabra

OutlineOutlineOutlineOutline

1. Introduction & the motivations for 1. Introduction & the motivations for 1. Introduction & the motivations for 1. Introduction & the motivations for

developing the IPrAdeveloping the IPrAdeveloping the IPrAdeveloping the IPrA (Jun, Hualde, Prieto)

2. Proposals on labels of2. Proposals on labels of2. Proposals on labels of2. Proposals on labels of---- Pitch accents (Prieto)Pitch accents (Prieto)Pitch accents (Prieto)Pitch accents (Prieto)---- Phrasal/Boundary tones (Jun)Phrasal/Boundary tones (Jun)Phrasal/Boundary tones (Jun)Phrasal/Boundary tones (Jun)---- NonNonNonNon----f0 features (Hualde)f0 features (Hualde)f0 features (Hualde)f0 features (Hualde)

Part 1Part 1Part 1Part 1

Introduction & the motivations Introduction & the motivations Introduction & the motivations Introduction & the motivations for developing the IPrAfor developing the IPrAfor developing the IPrAfor developing the IPrA

(by Sun-Ah Jun)

Transcription system of intonation and prosodic

structure in AM framework

• ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) is a consensus system for labelling spoken

utterances to mark phonologically contrastive intonational events and

prosodic structure based on the Autosegmental-Metrical model of intonational

phonology (e.g., Pierrehumbert 1980, Beckman & Pierrehumbert 1986, Ladd

1996/2008).

• It was originally designed for English (1994), but has become a general

framework for the development of prosodic annotation systems at the

phonological level

Various ToBI systems/AM models of intonation

• Models of intonational phonology and ToBI annotation systems have

been developed independently for dozens of typologically diverse

languages (e.g., edited books by Jun 2005, 2014, Frota & Prieto 2015).

ToBI is language-specific, not an IPA for prosody.

•The ToBI system proposed for each language is assumed to be

based on a well-established body of research on intonational

phonology of that language.

•Prosodic systems of various languages analyzed and described

in the same framework allowed us to compare the systems across

languages, i.e., prosodic typology

“ToBI is not an IPA for prosody. Each ToBI is specific to a language variety and the community of researchers working on the language variety”

Prosodic Typology

• Classification of languages based on their prosody. Classify based on what?

• Jun (2005, 2014) compared phonological categories (e.g., types of tones, the

size of tonal inventory, the type of prosodic units) across languages whose

prosodic system has been described in the AM phonology framework.

• Some researchers have argued that prosodic typology can be performed on

crosslinguistic comparisons of prosodic systems described at the underlying,

phonological level (e.g., Gussenhoven 2007, 2011; Hyman 2012).

• However, LaddLaddLaddLadd (2008b: 373-376), in his review of Jun’s (2005) 1st edited volume

of Prosodic Typology, highlighted the problems of proposing a typology based on

the comparison of abstract categories only:

“The heart of the issue is whether there is any basis for identifying SLPFP

(sustained level phrase-final pitch, e.g., calling contour) as a cross-linguistically

comparable phenomenon to be transcribed in comparable ways. ToBI can’t have

it both ways. If the analyses on which the transcription systems are based are

truly language-specific (or indeed, variety-specific), then they are strictly speaking

incommensurate, and typological generalisations are at best difficult and at worst

useless.”

Prosodic Typology

Ladd (2008; 376)

“The problem is that in order to do typology, you have to have a set of agreed

descriptions cast in comparable terms. And if we decide that they are

crosslinguistically identifiable, then we need … ‘a set of agreed descriptions

cast in comparable terms’. It won’t do in the long run if you call something

an upstepped low boundary tone and I say there’s no boundary tone there

at all.”

(p.373) “That kind of consensus is still lacking in the description of prosody.

The broad AM approach is certainly leading us toward such a consensus,

but we’re not there yet – it’s only the practical and collegial cohesiveness of

the ToBI movement that makes the progress seem greater than it is.”.

Two levels of prosodic transcription:Broad/categorical phonetic vs. Phonological

Antecedents

•The idea of incorporating two levels of prosodic transcription is not new.

•Korean ToBI system (Jun 2000, 2005) incorporated two levels of tonal

transcription.

•Phonetic tone tier: label 14 tonal patterns of an Accentual Phrase (basic

patterns: LHLH or HHLH), which are not distinctive but discrete categories

(some of them in free variation).

•Phonological tone tier: label AP boundaries and IP boundary tones

Example of various AP tonal patterns in Korean

: LH, HH, LLH, LHLH, LL

NOTIFICA

I-TOP powerful family-POSS a tutor-ACC met

• Beckman, Hirschberg, & Shattuck-Hufnagel (2005:39) supported having a

phonetic tier in ToBI with temporary labels, which are hypotheses about

discrete phonological categories, not an encoding of a downsampled f0

contour.

• Jun & Fletcher (2014:518) proposed a list of tonal labels to “be used as

“temporary” labels as a guideline for deciding tonal categories and

symbols when analyzing F0 contours in the AM framework before finalizing

distinctive categories of the target language” (when trying to develop an AM

model of a language/dialect)

Antecedents (cont.)

• Finally, the French ToBI system (Delais-Roussarie et al. 2015)

recognizes two levels of tonal representation by annotating allophonic

variants of underlying tonal pattern of Accentual Phrase, (aL) (Hi) (L) H*

• In IP-final final AP, the AP-final H* contrasts with L*, but in non-IP-final

AP position, the AP-final H* can be realized as L* non-contrastively

(probably due to dependency relations; Martin 1980, 2009), and this

allophonic variant is annotated as L* in the F-ToBI system.

Antecedents (cont.)

French AP-final pitch accent is sometimes realized as L* (allophonic)

- see the first 3 APs (Fig.3.4 in Delais-Roussarie et al. F-ToBI, 2015)

“The children followed the grandfather of the girl that wore a long black dress.”

Also, useful in Also, useful in Also, useful in Also, useful in

labeling L2 prosodylabeling L2 prosodylabeling L2 prosodylabeling L2 prosody

ex. Korean intonation by

L2 Korean learners of

L1 English

Korean AP-initial

“L” is produced as H*,

followed by AP-second

syllable H, creating

H*+H, which is a hybrid

of English and Korean

intonation.

Lee, H. (UCLA dissertation, in prog.)

Proposal: Develop an International Prosodic Alphabet (IPrA)

NOTIFICA

Develop a set of discrete tonal labels and diacritics that are

transparent and consistent at the categorical phonetic level.

This will be used:

1. as a temporary label before establishing a phonological

analysis of tones

2. as a way to represent allophonic realizations of an underlying

tonal category

3. as a way to represent hybrid or exceptional tonal categories

that are not part of the intonational model of any specific

language.

DO WE NEED A UNIVERSAL SET OF

PROSODIC LABELS?

(by Jose Hualde)

Comparative work

Difficult or impossible if labels have different

interpretations in different languages or

analyses

Current situation

The same contour may be given different labels

The same label is used for different contours

Examples: final sustained pitch and

final rise

Advantages of a common understanding

of symbols

Answering typological questions such as:

How many stress languages have a contour with a fall from

the pretonic to the stressed syllables?

H+L* (or HL*?)

What is the distribution/pragmatics of this contour in

different languages?

L*+HENGLISH

e.g. Veilleux et al. (2008)

L*+HSPANISH

e.g. Beckman et al (2002)

L+H*SPANISH

e.g., Prieto and Roseano (2010)

L+H*GREEK

e.g., Arvaniti and Baltazani (2005)

Different interpretations of same label:

L*+H and L+H* in different ToBI systems

Another question:

Why not use IPA tone diacritics?

Syllable-by-syllable tonal transcription systems

make generalizations across utterances

difficult

Autosegmental labels capture the relation

between underlying/phonological and

broad/categorical phonetic levels of

description in a more conspicuous way.

Autosegmental notation was introduced for the analysis

of lexical tone in order to better account for the

mapping between the broad phonetic level and the

postulated phonological level, including phenomena

such a contour formation from underlying sequences

of tone, tone spreading, surfacing of tone on different

syllables from their lexical sponsor, floating tones,

etc.

Bruce (1977) demonstrated the usefulness of the

autosegmental approach in our understanding of the

intonational contours of Swedish, by providing a uniform

underlying representation for the two contrastive lexical

pitch-accent, in spite of surface variation as lexical and

postlexical tones interact.

A clear advantage of the AM symbols is in

indicating differences of alignment between

segments and tonal events.

Also:

IPA symbols for “global rise” and “global fall” (in

addition to lexical tone and word accent ) do not

appear to be enough to capture all relevant

facts in intonation.

WHY DO WE NEED TWO LEVELS OF PROSODIC TRANSCRIPTION?

(by Pilar Prieto)

Main argument: Because it is very useful to represent the correspondence between

underlying prosodic categories and surface

patterns

In this section, we provide a set of examples (and more arguments) to motivate the need for a two-level approach to prosodic annotation

Broad phonetic transcriptions,

segmental level

• Broad phonetic transcriptions Broad phonetic transcriptions Broad phonetic transcriptions Broad phonetic transcriptions are very commonly used at the segmental level.

• They include easily heard characteristics and ignore important phonetic detail.*

Broad phoneticBroad phoneticBroad phoneticBroad phonetic meter (EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglish) mira ‘s/he looks’ (CatalanCatalanCatalanCatalan)

[ˈmiɾə] [ˈmiɾə]

• Similar broad phonetic transcriptions, yet different phonological analyses phonological analyses phonological analyses phonological analyses :

PhonologicalPhonologicalPhonologicalPhonological meter (EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglish) mira ‘s/he looks’ (CatalanCatalanCatalanCatalan)

/ˈmittttər/ /ˈmiɾ+aaaa/

* A narrow phonetic transcription narrow phonetic transcription narrow phonetic transcription narrow phonetic transcription would encode finer differences of phonetic detail.

• Broad phonetic transcriptions are useful for the systematic description of

the phonetic realization of underlying segments.

• For example, in Spanish, it is important to know that [ˈehta] and [ˈesta] are

two ways of pronouncing the same word esta /ˈesta/ ‘this, fem.’ in many

dialects.

Conversely, having access ONLY to a broad phonetic level

would not inform us about the fact that they are phonetic

realizations of the SAME category.

Having access ONLY to a phonological level of transcription

would not inform us about the surface patterns of syll-final /-s/.

These two levels of representation have been the

standard way of analyzing sound alternations across

languages.

The same arguments can be applied at the suprasegmentalsuprasegmentalsuprasegmentalsuprasegmental

levellevellevellevel.

In here, we will consider two types of examples which

involve tonal alternations tonal alternations tonal alternations tonal alternations dependant on prosodic context....

The case of truncated tunes

• Truncated tunes are quite frequent crosslinguistically

• It is quite common crosslinguistically for a rising-falling underlying intonation

sequence such as L+H* L% to be truncated if lexical stress falls on the word-final

syllable (see Grice et al. 2005 for southern Italian varieties, Ortega-Llebaria and Prieto 2009 for

Catalan and Peninsular Spanish, Armstrong 2010 for Puerto Rican Spanish, Gabriel et al. 2010 for

Argentinean Spanish, and Cabrera-Abreu and Vizcaino-Ortega 2010 for Canarian, among many others)

• Yet, current ToBI practices make it hard for researchers to systematically refer to

truncated patterns.

Truncated interrogative tunes, Puerto

Rican Spanish

• “The phonetic realization of a ¡H* L% interrogative tune can initially cause

confusion for transcribers” (Armstrong 2015).

• In stress-final words it can be truncated, while in paroxytonic words it is not.

¿Que vieron a Mariariariariana?‘Did you see Marianne?’

¿Se quieren callarllarllarllar?‘Do you want to stop talking?’

Transcribing truncated contours

• Having access ONLY to a phonological level of transcription does not allow

researchers to systematically refer to a representation of truncated patterns.

• Conversely, having access ONLY to a broad phonetic level of transcription

does not inform us about the fact that we are dealing with surface realizations

of the SAME category.

• Contextual neutralization Contextual neutralization Contextual neutralization Contextual neutralization is a pervasive phenomenon in segmental phonology

and, arguably, its incidence is very strong in the intonational component.

• Not allowing for a level of broad phonetic representation means that we will

not have access to the level of representation level of representation level of representation level of representation that represents allophonic allophonic allophonic allophonic

differencesdifferencesdifferencesdifferences (e.g., distinguishes between truncated vs. non-truncated contours,

etc.).

Neutralization of contrasts: L+H* and H*

• The potential contrast between H* H* H* H* and L+H* L+H* L+H* L+H* has been the source of a good

amount of interinterinterinter----transcriber disagreement transcriber disagreement transcriber disagreement transcriber disagreement across several ToBI systems (e.g.

Pitrelli et al 1994 and Syrdal et al 2001 for Mainstream American English ToBI, and

Escudero et al. 2012 for Catalan ToBI).

• For American English ToBI the issue has not been settled yet (e.g. work by Ladd

2008a, Ladd and Morton 1997 arguing for a gradient difference, Steedman 2013 for a

categorical difference, and also depends on dialect).

• However, phrase-initial positions are a clear neutralizing context in English

(MAE_ToBI) and in other languages with the L+H*/H* alternation.

Catalan neutralization of L+H* vs. H*

In Catalan, we have a clear contrast between a H* and a L+H* pitch accent.

And, like in English, phrase-initial L+H* can surface as H*.

• Again, if we are interested in analyzing the patterns of correspondence

between the underlying L+H* pitch accent and its surface realizations, one

level of analysis is not sufficient.

• Some work has adopted an intermediate level of analysis, like (L)+H* (e.g.,

Grice 2005). Yet, in a system with phonological H* (Catalan), a H*

transcription can ambiguously correspond to two distinct phonological

categories.

ADVANTAGES OF ADOPTING TWO LEVELS OF PROSODIC TRANSCRIPTION

1.It allows for a clearclearclearclear mapping between underlying categories of prosody mapping between underlying categories of prosody mapping between underlying categories of prosody mapping between underlying categories of prosody and their surface patterns.their surface patterns.their surface patterns.their surface patterns.

And…

2.It can allow for more abstract phonological analyses more abstract phonological analyses more abstract phonological analyses more abstract phonological analyses of intonation across languages.

3.It can contextualize results of detailed phonetic analyses contextualize results of detailed phonetic analyses contextualize results of detailed phonetic analyses contextualize results of detailed phonetic analyses of tunes.

Abstract phonological analyses

• Another advantage of the two-level analysis would be the clarification of the

status of each level of transcription.

• Some ToBI systems represent a compromise between broad phonetic and

phonological levels of transcription. E.g., Korean ToBI and French ToBI

examples.

• In Spanish ToBI, the label L+<H* is very useful as a broad prosodic label to

analyze dialectal differences (e.g., retracted peaks reported in Andean Spanish by

O’Rourke 2005, Buenos Aires Spanish by Colantoni and Gurlekian 2004; Spanish in

contact with Basque by Elordieta and Calleja 2005), but no phonological differences

in alignment are reported in prenuclear positions.

• If transparent labellings are encoded at the broad phonetic level,

important generalizationsgeneralizationsgeneralizationsgeneralizations and nonnonnonnon----predictable information predictable information predictable information predictable information can be

encoded at the phonological level.

• Conversely, adopting a level of broad phonetic transcription will also help

clarify systematic analyses of fine phonetic features systematic analyses of fine phonetic features systematic analyses of fine phonetic features systematic analyses of fine phonetic features across intonation

contours (F0 Max, F0 Min, duration, etc.), which will be able to incorporate a

level of broad phonetic transcription.

• Oftentimes, this work does not incorporate a phonological analysis of the

pitch contours and uses general terms such as “global rise”, “global falling”,

etc.

• Having access to an IPrA alphabet to transcribe the curve will facilitate the

use of the tools for broad phonetic transcription.

• We regard this proposal as an opportunity to integrate

purely phonetic vs. phonological work on intonation

PARTIAL CONCLUSIONS

IPrA PROPOSAL IN A NUTSHELL

•Adoption of two levels of analysis, e.g. broad phonetic and phonological.

• Arguments for developing an IPrA alphabet which is based on units that are universally accepted.

Advantages of having broad phonetic transcription in

addition to the phonological tones in ToBI

• To facilitate the prosodic labelling of languages for which the phonological

repertoire is not yet known.

• To allow for more transparent comparisons across languages.

• To clarify in a systematic way the relationship between the phonetic forms and

phonological categories.

• To clarify the level of transcription different ToBI systems are using right now.

• To allow for more abstract phonological analyses of intonation across languages.

• To facilitate the use of tools for broad phonetic transcription to researchers

interested in fine phonetic detail.

• To increase the levels obtained by inter-transcriber agreement tests.

• To facilitate the study of languages in contact and L2 prosody.

• To facilitate the automatic and semi-automatic labelling of large corpora.

Part 2

Brief practical proposal and rationale behind the IPrA set

Rationale behind the construction

of an IPrA set

NOTIFICA

• Proposal based on prosodic descriptions of more than 30 languages (e.g., languages included in Jun 2005, Jun 2014, Frota & Prieto 2015, among others).

• New units are incorporated if they can be shown to be used with a distinctive value in a given language. That is, we are adopting a tone symbol for the broad phonetic representation if the symbol was used in some language to have a distinctive value.

• This is similar in nature in how the IPA incorporates a new symbol in the segmental inventory.

• Our goal is to establish a set of “broad phonetic tonal labels”, that is, we are trying to capture the categorical nature of f0 contour, thus not narrow phonetic representation of f0 (like INTSINT and IViE),

• In a new language, where there is no clear presence of lexical stress or pitch accent, one could use temporary labels without the ‘*’ or the ‘%’markers.

Pitch accents

Monotonal pitch accents

!H* at the broad phonetic level would be transcribing both phonological and non-phonological downstep. The phonological level of analysis would just encode the phonological level.

The H* and L* categories have been vastly used. Also, a handful of studies propose a contrastive mid tone, e.g. !H* (e.g., Beckman & Hirschberg 1994, Ipek & Jun 2013, Ipek 2015), and a super-high tone, i.e., ¡H* (Prieto 2014).

Bitonal accents: alignment contrasts

QUESTION: Do we have any evidence for a three-way phonological contrast in alignment for falling accents?

Bitonal accents: pitch height contrasts

QUESTION: Do we have evidence for a three-way scaling contrast in rising pitch accents (e.g., L+H* vs L+¡H* vs. L+!H*).

Tritonal pitch accents

QUESTION: Do we have evidence for contrastive tritonal pitch accents?

Phrasal/Boundary tones

Boundary tones

Monotonal:

IP-final boundary tones: low: L%high: H%super-high: ¡H% (vs. ^H in German ToBI)med high: !H% (vs. M% in Spanish, Jamaican Eng Creole)

high plateau: H-% (in German ToBI; H-L% in MAE_ToBI; H:% in

Cantonese; 0% in German by Grabe1998)mid plateau: !H-% (in German ToBI; % in Dutch for continuing

earlier H or !H, but for no boundary tone in

Cantonese)low plateau: L-%

IP-initial boundary tones:low: %Lhigh: %H

Boundary tones

Multi-tonal IP-final boundary tones:

full-rising: LH%mid-rising: L!H%falling: HL%

rise-fall: LHL%fall-rise: HLH%rise-fall-rise: LHLH%fall-rise-fall: HLHL%rise-fall-rise-fall: LHLHL%

Register shift

Register shift at an IP level:

raised pitch range of a whole IP: %H-> (vs. %H which is local)

pitch range modification within an IP (all from Pan-Mandarin)beginning of a raised pitch range: %q-raisebeginning of local expansion of pitch range due to

emphatic prominence: %e-prom

beginning of pitch range reduction after focus: %compressed

Phrasal/Boundary tones

Intermediate Phrase (ip) boundary tones or phrase accent:

ip-final low : L-ip-final high: H-ip-final mid: !H- (e.g., German, Lebanese Arabic)

ip-level phrase accent, rise: LH- (e.g., Serbo-Croatian)ip-level phrase accent, fall: HL- (e.g., Neopolitan Italian)

ip-initial rise: -LH (e.g., Mongolian)

Phrasal/Boundary tones

Accentual Phase (AP) boundary tones or phrase accent:

AP-initial low: aL (e.g., French; vs. %L in Japanese)

AP-final low: La (e.g., Dalabon, Georgian, vs. L% in Japanese)

AP-final high: Ha (e.g., Bengali, Korean, Tamil, Georgian)

AP-medial phrasal tone or phrase accent fall: H+L (e.g., Georgian)high: H (e.g., Japanese, French)

AP-tonal melodyLHL (e.g., Koriyama Japanese)LHLH (e.g., Chickasaw)=> probably can be labeled as AP-phrasal or boundary

tones

Phrasal/Boundary tones

Prosodic Word (PW) boundary tones or tonal melody:

PW-initial low: wLPW-initial high: wH

** no example languages yet but possibly PW-final boundary tones:

PW-final low: LwPW-final high: Hw

PW-level tonal melodyLLH (e.g., Kobayashi Japanese)HLH (e.g., Greenlandic by Arhhold, but this was

analyzed as HL word tone + phrasal H by Nagano-

Madson)=> probably can be labeled as a combination of PW-

phrasal and boundary tones (e.g., LLH in Kobayashi =>

Non-F0 features

Non-F0 featuresProminence cued by features other than F0

Non-tonal boundaries

Non-local voice quality features

Duration as a cue to prominence

A number of languages have been reported to use a localized increase

in duration to indicate phrase-level prominence even in the

absence of any pitch movement associated with the accented

syllable.

Questions:

Should we introduce a label for accentual prominence provided

exclusively by duration, without an associated pitch movement?

Perhaps: *:*:*:*:

Obligatory lengthening may occur in conjunction with a specific pitch

movement (so that presence vs absence of lengthening establishes

a contrast in pragmatic meaning). Any examples?

Should this be indicated as a feature of the accent?, e.g. L:*+H?

Accent-related glottalization

Localized glottalization may serve as a contrastive

accentual feature, e.g. Latvian “broken” accent.

Final lengthening

A number of languages have been reported to use

final lengthening as the only cue to

interrogativity or in combination with other cues.

Karlsson (2004) proposes the symbol H:L% to

indicate a lengthened final boundary.

Other non-F0 boundaries with pragmatic

meaning

Rialland (2007) reports a “breathy termination”, together

with final lengthening as a marker of interrogativity in

Moba (Gur). In other Gur languages questions have

final contour (L%) in addition to a lengthened and

breathy final vowel.

Non-local voice quality features

Voice quality, including glottalization and creaky and

breathy phonation have been reported to convey the

meaning of incredulity in a number of languages,

including Korean and Catalan.

Towards developing a standard for

prosodic annotationThank you for your attention!

Introducció

Background readings

Jun, Sun-Ah & Fletcher, Janet (2014) Methodology of Studying Intonation: From Data

Collection to Data Analysis. In: Sun-Ah Jun (ed.) Prosodic Typology II: The Phonology of

Intonation and Phrasing. Oxford University Press. pp. 493-519 .

HUALDE, J. I. & PRIETO, P. (under revision) “Towards an International Prosodic

Alphabet”,