Introduction and Overview: Prosody€¦ · Specific functions of prosody (including the marking of information structure) Prosodic structure and influencing factors ... (e.g. intonation

Introduction and Overview:

Prosody

Stefan Baumann IfL-Phonetik

Universität zu Köln

Structure of the Talk Introduction to prosody: Tasks and parameters

Specific functions of prosody (including the marking of information structure)

Prosodic structure and influencing factors

2 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014

Prosody: Tasks and Parameters Two main tasks of prosody

– (1) Highlighting: marking prominences – (2) Phrasing: marking division of speech into chunks

Phonetic parameters to achieve highlighting and phrasing – Pitch (movement) – Loudness – Segmental length – Segmental quality – (Pauses)


Highlighting West Germanic languages (stress accent languages,

see Beckman 1986)

– Lexical stress: word level, abstract, potential for concrete prominence

Ber ‘lin

,Mas sa ‘chu setts


Highlighting – Postlexical stress: utterance level, concrete prominence, no pitch

movement (duration, intensity)

Example (Huss 1978):

1) Whereas formerly the GOvernment used to increase benefits, now the emPLOyers increase benefits.

2) Whereas formerly the WORkers‘ increase in deductions used to benefit from inflation, now the emPLOyers‘ increase benefits.

postlexical stress


Highlighting – (Pitch) Accent: utterance level, concrete prominence, pitch

movement (plus duration, intensity)

I bought a HOUSE.


Highlighting Stress and Accent – concrete prominence of

syllables at utterance level

prenuclear nuclear Position in utterance (status in prosodic hierarchy)

(adapted from Terken & Hermes 2000)


Highlighting by Phrasing Example Korean

– A: [satšun-enni] [irimi] [mweni] (lit. cousin name what)

– B: [satšun-enni irimi] [suni-dži] (lit. cousin name Suni)

– Analogy to accenting and deaccenting: name is the center/most important part of the question (A) → realised as own phrase

In the answer (B) name is contextually given → not realised as own phrase (“dephrasing“)


Phrasing Examples

– Telephone numbers: 928 77 66 or 22 22 22 2 – [The car you see is mine] vs.

[The car] [you see] [is mine]

Cues to phrase breaks:

Pauses

Boundary tones (pitch movement associated with unaccented syllables at phrase boundaries)

Tonal reset (jump in pitch either up or down at beginning of new phrase)


Phrasing Domain-final lengthening (e.g. Wightman et al.

1992, Turk & Shattuck-Hufnagel 2007)

– Pre-boundary segments significantly longer (but not louder and more strongly articulated ≠ stress), slowing down of articulatory gestures


Phrasing – The larger the prosodic domain the greater the degree of

lengthening


(from Grice 2006, Frota 2012)

Phrasing: No Phrase Boundary (word boundary)

256 ms

Examples by S. Shattuck-Hufnagel 12 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014

Phrasing: Intermediate (= smaller) Phrase Boundary

386 ms


Phrasing: Intonation Phrase (= larger) Boundary

687 ms


Phrasing Decrease of intensity at the end of an IP

Domain-initial strengthening (e.g. Keating et al. 2003)

– Consonants hyperarticulated to indicate beginning of higher prosodic domains (e.g. intonation phrase > intermediate phrase > phonological word > foot > syllable)


Phrasing – Increasing resistance to assimilations in larger domains (e.g. Kuzla

2009)

Weil er vorha[t, W]älder und Seen zu malen...

→ no devoicing of /v/ at beginning of intermediate phrase (= no voicing assimilation)

Benno ha[t W]älder und Seen gemalt.

→ devoicing of /v/ at beginning of phonological word (= voicing assimilation)


Phrasing Voice quality

– Creaky voice and glottalisation at beginning and/or end of a domain

Abrupt change in rhythm/ tempo – e.g. anacrusis (fast sequence of syllables at beginning of

a phrase)


Both Highlighting and Phrasing Rhythm (relation between prominent and non-

prominent syllables) – Principle of alternation: thirTEEN + MEN → THIRteen MEN

Tempo (speech rate) – More assimilations and reductions, less phrases and accents in

faster speech


It’s probably the same thing

Examples by S. Shattuck-Hufnagel 19 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014

probably the (fast speech)


probably (slow speech)


Neither Highlighting nor Phrasing: Speech Melody

= Intonation in a narrow sense

Same accent placement, same phrasing, different tunes:

Are you coming to the PARty tonight?

Are you coming to the PARty tonight?


Specific Functions of Prosody

Specific Functions of Prosody

(Grice & Baumann 2007)


Indicating Syntactic Structure

– Differentiation of sentence type by intonation contour (in combination with choice of words and word order), e.g. question vs. statement

They went to Berlin? They went to Berlin.

interrogative declarative


Indicating Syntactic Structure

– Syntactic disambiguation by phrasing

old men and women

John murdered the man with a gun.

[old men] [and women]

[old] [men and women]

[John murdered the man ] [ with a gun ]

[John murdered ] [ the man with a gun ]


Indicating Syntactic Structure – Syntactic(-semantic) disambiguation by phrasing and

intonation contour Is he drinking?

William is not DRINking because he’s unHAPpy.

William is not DRINking because he’s unHAPpy.

yes

no


Indicating Syntactic Structure – Syntactic disambiguation by accent placement

I asked the teacher who left.

(Schafer et al. 2000)

I asked the teacher WHO left or: WHO LEFT

I asked the teacher who LEFT


Indicating Speech Acts

– Differentiation of illocutionary acts (speaker intention independent of sentence mode) by intonation, e.g.

Why don‘t you go to GeNEva? Why don‘t you go to GeNEva?

information seeking question suggestion / command


Indicating Information Structure – Information structure: Three dimensions

= Focus (broad, narrow, contrastive) vs. Background

= Information status (given – accessible – new)

= Theme/Rheme or Topic/Comment


Indicating Information Structure Important/informative elements are highlighted (in

particular by accentuation), unimportant/uninformative elements are not

= Basic assumption of Focus-to-Accent (FTA) approach

Two variants: – Radical (highlighting-based) – Formal (structure-based)


Indicating Information Structure Radical FTA: Relation between focus and accent is

bidirectional and universal

Single words are in focus and thus highlighted, no larger constituents

Accent position is non-predictable, only dependent on intentions of the speaker and discourse context (→ strictly pragmatic) (see Bolinger, Schmerling)


Indicating Information Structure Speakers are perfectly free to highlight word A

rather than word B or word C

(1) This is the MAN I was telling you about. (2) This is the man I was TELLing you about.

(Schmerling 1976)

Schmerling: Difference between (1) and (2) could not be accounted for by any conceivable linguistic theory


Indicating Information Structure However, bidirectionality of focus and accent is

problematic in broad focus: nuclear accent stands in for larger focus domain (focus projection), i.e. focus without accent

– What's up?

– [ I'm going to BerLIN tomorrow. ]F

Further evidence against 1:1-relation: – Focus without accent: Second Occurrence Focus – Accent without focus: Accents on background material


Indicating Information Structure Formal/ Indirect FTA: Position of (nuclear) accent

determines the interpretation of an utterance’s information structure (= larger constituents)

– to some extent predictable by semantic-syntactic rules of a language (e.g. Gussenhoven 2007)


Indicating Information Structure Claim: In English and German (final) arguments are

more likely to receive a (nuclear) pitch accent than predicates (if they occur in the same focus domain)

I bought a HOUSE. predicate argument

Ich habe ein HAUS gekauft. predicate argument predicate


Indicating Information Structure Three different kinds of givenness which may trigger

deaccentuation of the final argument

1. Givenness of a discourse referent (i.e. coreference)

John has an old cottage. a) Last summer he reconSTRUCted the shed.

(shed = cottage) given information = coreference

b) Last summer he reconstructed the SHED. (shed ≠ cottage) new information = no coreference


Indicating Information Structure 2. Givenness of a lexical item (no coreference)

After the holidays, John arrived in a new car, and also HARry had a new car.

(Deaccentuation of given elements is language-specific:

no/less deaccentuation e.g. in Indian English, Singapore English, Romance languages…)


Indicating Information Structure 3. Concept-givenness (van Deemter 1994, 1999) due to

an inferential relation between two (non-identical) entities (lexical superordination of anaphor)

Do you like dogs? I like ALL animals. (hyponym – hypernym)

Why do you spend so much time in Naples? It's my favourite CIty in Italy. (part – whole)


Indicating Information Structure Asymmetry: lexical subordination of anaphor

Referring expressions are less activated than given information (see Chafe 1976, 1994) more likely to be accented

Do you like animals? I like all DOGS. (hypernym – hyponym)

Why do you spend so much time in Italy? I have a friend in NAples. (whole – part)


Indicating Information Structure In addition:

Accentuation due to contrastive focus, despite referential and lexical givenness (prerequisite: clearly identifiable alternative set)

A: Was it Mary or John who invited you to the party? B: It was [JOHN]F .


contrastive focus

referentially given lexically given

Indicating Information Structure Information structural meaning differences also

encoded by different pitch accent types (German)

Givenness


Falling vs. rising onglide

(Röhr & Baumann 2011)

Indicating Information Structure Focus


Falling vs. rising onglide

(Krüger 2009, Ritter & Grice 2013)

Indicating Information Structure Direct relation between accent types and perceived

prominence


low < falling < high < rising

(Baumann & Röhr, in prep.)

Prosodic Structure

Prosodic Structure Certain aspects of prosody are grammatical in nature

and as such represented in a phonological representation, called Prosodic Structure

Prosodic structure subsumes three types of structure:

– Prosodic constituent structure (Prosodic Hierarchy)

– Metrical structure (Relative metrical strength of syllables and words)

– Tonal structure (Location and type of pitch accents and boundary tones)


Some Factors influencing Prosodic Structure

Pragmatics and semantics (information structure)

Syntactic constraints

Well-formedness conditions on the size and eurhythmicity of prosodic constituents


Prosodic Structure vs. Syntactic Structure

Prosodic edges often align with syntactic edges BUT prosodic structure ≠ syntactic structure

(Steedman 1991) 48 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014


Well-formed prosodic choices may violate (traditional) syntactic structure

– Length/weight of constituents: a short syntactic constituent can be joined with a fragment of another preferred metrical structure

• The man in the red hat / went home to eat. NP / VP • He went home / to eat and sleep. violates NP / VP

(Shattuck-Hufnagel & Turk 1996) 49 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014


Speakers have prosodic options – Location of pitch accents

• It’s al-RIGHT vs. It’s AL-RIGHT vs. IT’S AL-RIGHT

– Phrasing • drink a pint of milk a day → drink a / pint a / milk a / day

– Tunes • Are you coming to the PARty tonight? (rising vs. falling)

(Shattuck-Hufnagel & Turk 1996) 50 Workshop SynSemPro, Cologne, December 1-2, 2014

The End! H+L*

Introduction and Overview: Prosody€¦ · Specific functions of prosody (including the marking of information structure) Prosodic structure and influencing factors ... (e.g. intonation

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