Abstract
When annotating a speech signal using an autosegmental-metrical model of intonation, transcribers associate portions of the F0 contour with labels from a finite inventory of tonal categories. In the models we are concerned with here, these categories have the status of phonological units (phonological form), bridging the intrinsic variability of the speech signal (substance) with the intrinsic fuzziness of post-lexical function (meaning). This, together with the relatively small size of the label inventory, precludes a one-to-one relationship between form and substance, and/or between form and function. A Neapolitan Italian corpus of read speech is used to investigate the distributional properties of two pitch accents that have been studied extensively with respect to substance (the alignment of F0 peaks) and meaning (sentence modality). Although there is a general consensus that peaks in this variety are aligned earlier in declaratives than in interrogatives, evidence is provided of contexts in which the converse is true, i.e., in which interrogative peaks are even earlier than their declarative counterparts. In this respect, interrogatives have a richer internal structure than declaratives. We argue that differences in how variably a prosodic category is encoded can be dealt with in an intonation transcription system, as long as this system relates phonological form (the choice of pitch accent in this case) both to phonetic substance and to meaning in a transparent way.
Highlights
1.1 Background Intonation transcription within the autosegmental-metrical framework entails the use of discrete and symbolic labels, which in most cases (e.g., Jun, 2005) refer to phonological units
We focus on differences in internal structure across two intonational categories in Neapolitan Italian
2.4 Microscopic analysis: sub-clustering and dispersion So far, we have explored the interplay between sub-clustering and dispersion at a macroscopic level, by evaluating variance in F0 values across entire utterances or prosodic words
Summary
1.1 Background Intonation transcription within the autosegmental-metrical framework entails the use of discrete and symbolic labels, which in most cases (e.g., Jun, 2005) refer to phonological units. If implemented with full awareness, such an approach would provide an ideal frame for the incorporation of recent developments in our understanding of the relationship between phonetics and phonology (Pierrehumbert et al, 2000) and of the dynamics between the continuous and discrete poles of linguistic knowledge (Gafos & Benus, 2006). It would make the concept of mapping superfluous (Ohala, 1990), since the three dimensions of meaning, form, and substance would not be separable in the first place.
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