The Adaptation of the ToBI System for Lithuanian Pitch Change

Abstract

Prosody (intonation) is one of the most complicated phenomena of a spoken language. The most convenient tool for this type of research can be at least minimally annotated speech corpus and properly prepared speech labeling system based on common methodology widely used by foreign researchers. One of the most popular standards for annotation and transcription of prosodic events is ToBI (an acronym for Tones and Break Indices). The transcription system of an utterance consists minimally of a recording of the speech, its fundamental frequency contour, and (in the transcription proper) symbolic labels for prosodic events. The transcription proper is usually arranged in four time-aligned parallel horizontal tiers: the Tone tier, the Orthographic tier, the Break-Index tier and the Miscellaneous tier, for recording additional observations. The main aim of this paper is the following: to outline the use of ToBI transcription system for the transcription of Lithuanian intonation and to reveal the future research in the area of prosody. Therefore the main task of this paper was to make a wide – range investigation of ToBi transcription system in order to present the process of creating transcription system for intonation in Lithuanian. It was investigated, that ToBI transcription proper is applicable for the prosodic annotation of Lithuanian intonation and is the most convenient tool for prosody research of this type.