Integrating the discreteness and continuity of intonational categories

Abstract

It has already been observed that there is no one-to-one mapping between intonational categories and the pragmatic functions they are used to express. For instance, in German a particular pitch accent (L+H∗) is often used to express contrastive (corrective) focus, but neither is the use of this pitch accent confined to this function nor is this the only pitch accent used to express it. In particular, there are considerable differences across speakers in the use of pitch accents and the functions they express. In this paper we look at the phonetic parameters that are characteristic of each of these pitch accents (f0 peak alignment, tonal onglide and target height) and observe a striking similarity across speakers: All speakers modulate each parameter in the same direction, e.g. the f0 peak is aligned later for contrastive focus than for narrow focus. Whereas for some speakers this is transcribed as two different pitch accents (L+H∗ vs. H∗), for others it is not, and the peak alignment is treated as phonetic variation within one accent type (H∗). To capture both the differences and similarities in intonation, we therefore argue for an integrated analysis of the discrete phonological pitch accents and the modulation of continuous phonetic parameters that characterise them.