Phrase Tone Research Articles

Re-examining the effect of phonological similarity between the native- and second-language intonational systems in second-language speech segmentation

AbstractThis study investigates how phonological and phonetic aspects of the native-language (L1) intonation modulate the use of tonal cues in second-language (L2) speech segmentation. Previous research suggested that prosodic learning is more difficult if the L1 and L2 intonations are phonologically similar but phonetically different (French–Korean) than if they are phonologically different (English–French/Korean) (Prosodic-Learning Interference Hypothesis; Tremblay, Broersma, Coughlin & Choi, 2016). This study provides another test of this hypothesis. Korean listeners and French-speaking and English-speaking L2 learners of Korean in Korea completed an eye-tracking experiment investigating the effects of phrase tones in Korean. All groups patterned similarly with the phrase-final tone, but, unlike Korean and French listeners, English listeners showed early benefits from the phrase-initial tone (signaling word-initial boundaries in English). Importantly, French listeners patterned like Korean listeners with both tones. The Prosodic-Learning Interference Hypothesis is refined to suggest that prosodic learning difficulties may not be persistent for immersed L2 learners.

The prosody of corrective focus and its domain in Korean

Speakers place focus on specific linguistic elements using systematic modulations to highlight new or important information. Focus effects have primarily been studied for domains larger than a segment, such as syllables or words. By eliciting focus on segment-sized units using a corrective focus task, this study examines at what granularity or scope speakers manifest focus and its acoustic consequences for consonants differing in gestural and tonal compositions. Data were obtained from 16 native Korean speakers producing corrective focus on segments having varying syllable-internal positions (i.e., onset, nucleus, versus coda focus) and varying segmental compositions (i.e., tense and lax consonants). The results indicate that the patterns of focus modulation do not differ depending the on anticipated sub-syllabic focus position but rather are exhibited through the syllable. This suggests that the domain of focus extends beyond segment-sized intervals. Moreover, focus is manifested with systematic variations as a function of the gestural compositions active during its domain. Finally, there is some support for an interaction among multiple prosodic gestures—focus gestures and accentual phrase tone gestures. Overall, evidence suggests that focus has a syllable-sized (or larger) scope of effect that is sensitive to co-active articulatory and prosodic (tonal) gestures. [Work supported by NIH.]

Exclusives, equatives and prosodic phrases in Samoan

This paper investigates the functions of prosodic phrasing in the Austronesian VSO language Samoan. Two types of sentences are investigated, exclusives (involving the particle na’o ‘only’) and equatives. Two complementary methodologies were used, a production study and an acceptability judgment study, to examine the prosodic realisation and relative naturalness of different word orderings of the two sentence types. The particle na’o has an unusual distribution: preceding the initial constituent, be it the verb or a fronted noun phrase; or following the verb, but only modifying the absolutive (object). It was found that post-verbal absolutives modified by na’o are usually not preceded by a phrase boundary, unlike unmodified absolutives which are consistently preceded by a high phrase tone (H-) (cf. Yu 2009). Equatives in Samoan involve clauses which are the juxtaposition of two noun phrases, one the rheme (focus) and the other the theme (topic). It was found that rhemes are usually followed by a phrase break, while for themes this is optional. Rheme-theme order was strongly preferred to theme-rheme order. These findings are argued to show a close relationship between information structure, constituent ordering and prosodic phrasing in Samoan. The preferred order of constituents in Samoan is rheme-theme, with a high phrase tone marking the end of the rheme. The absolutive argument is strongly preferred to be at the start of the theme. This article is part of the Special Collection: Prosody and constituent structure

The calling contour in Hungarian and English

This article examines the calling contour (CC) in Hungarian and systematically compares its formal properties with those of its English counterpart. After a critical survey of the literature on the English CC, it carries out a phonological analysis of the Hungarian CC, offering a plausible representation based on that analysis. This contains a H pitch accent (H*) and a downstepped H phrase tone (!H-), corresponding to the first and second terrace of the CC respectively. Other apparent possibilities,viz. that the second H tone is a trailing tone or a boundary tone, are rejected. When the Hungarian CC is utterance-final, it coincides with the final portion of an intonational phrase and needs a boundary tone. It is argued that this boundary tone is neither H% nor L but 0% (H* !H-0%). Hungarian utterances can also contain utterance-internal CCs. These can be analysed as being intermediate phrases, lacking a final boundary tone.

Prosodic Features and Prosodic Structure: The Phonology of Suprasegmentals (review)

Reviewed by: Prosodic features and prosodic structure: The phonology of suprasegmentals by Anthony Fox Linnea Micciulla Prosodic features and prosodic structure: The phonology of suprasegmentals. By Anthony Fox. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 401. Cloth $99.00. Drawing from an impressive array of sources, this comprehensive book focuses on the understanding of length, accent, tone, and intonation as major prosodic features. Written for linguists with a background in phonology, each chapter includes phonetic and phonological perspectives, examining both paradigmatic and syntagmatic theories and presenting potential distinctive features. Fox adopts a historical approach to prosody throughout, beginning with the early Greeks and including findings from the past decade, although he draws most heavily from the Prague school and the American structuralists. The stated goal is to provide an understanding of prosodic structure by showing the importance of early contributions to current research. The chapter devoted to length includes the viewpoints proposed by the Prague school and the American structuralists and considers the role of the mora from several perspectives. F discusses two nonlinear approaches to length, combining metrical and auto-segmental theories. In his critique of Kenneth Pike’s categorization of stress-timed and syllable-timed languages, F points out that there is no evidence for evenly timed stress nor does he see evidence for syllable-timed languages. This chapter would benefit from additional justification for unexplained assumptions that are made as well as from corrections of typographical and other errors. The following chapter on accent defines past and present meanings of the term ‘accent’ and introduces dynamic stress-accent and melodic pitch-accent as the basic accent types. The primary approaches covered include the Prague school’s functional approach, the American structuralists’ distributional theories, and various pedagogical premises. An exploration of the representations of accent developed by Mark Liberman, Alan Prince, Elisabeth Selkirk, and Bruce Hayes evaluates the use of grids and trees. The chapter on tone includes comparisons of downstep and downdrift, attempts by several theorists to assign binary features to tone, and discussions of the role of register and of the function of tone bearing units. Fox highlights the contributions of Kenneth Pike, John Goldsmith, Larry Hyman, and Moira Yip, among others. The intonation chapter is perhaps the most insightful. Evaluations of several theories focusing on pitch levels vs. pitch contours reveal an advantage to contour approaches, as these may be grouped by shape. The chapter gives an excellent overview of the work of Janet Pierrehumbert and of the author. In Pierrehumbert’s work, English intonation patterns are represented by pitch accents, a phrase tone, and a boundary tone. F cites his own previous work in describing a typology including envelope, prominence, and modality features. The book concludes by combining the discussion of length, accent, tone, and intonation in a detailed critique of proposed hierarchies of prosodic structure. Three types of specifications emerge as the various analyses presented throughout the book are classified as bottom-up, top-down, or left-to-right. In this ambitious work, F displays a profound knowledge of the history of prosodic studies and a remarkable ability to sift through this legacy, highlighting those sometimes forgotten revelations which deserve to be remembered and reconsidered. Linnea Micciulla Boston University Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

Pitch accent, phrase tones, and vowel devoicing in Tokyo Japanese

In Tokyo Japanese, short high vowels devoice between voiceless consonants, which conflicts with the realization of pitch accent. The fundamental frequency around the devoiced region in a corpus of 12 speakers was measured to investigate if and how speakers compensate for the loss of information normally conveyed by the pitch accent. Previous studies revealed that elevation and abrupt pitch fall immediately after the devoiced region is characteristic of utterances containing a devoiced accented syllable. However, preliminary analyses of these data show the occurrence of the characteristic pitch pattern after a devoiced region is dependent on the pitch height before the devoiced region. If two syllables are consecutively devoiced and the first one bears an accent, the pitch elevation only occurs when the antepenultimate syllable has a low phrase tone. This suggests a nonlocal pitch adjustment exists dependent on the occurrence of devoicing and the location of phrase tones. This also implies that vowel devoicing is not just a low-level consonantal effect, but has a long distance impact on the execution of phrasal pitch contours.

Boundary tones and focus realization in African American English intonations

Intonation of African American English (AAE) has been impressionistically described as having a final level rising and an early rise contour different from that of mainstream American English (MAE) [Tarone (1972)]. But to our knowledge, no systematic description of AAE intonation has been done based on phonetic experiments. In this study, tone patterns occurring at the final edge (nuclear pitch accent, phrase tone, and boundary tone) of different sentence types were examined. Tonal patterns were compared based on the framework of Pierrehumbert and her colleagues [Pierrehumbert, 1980]. In addition, the location of focus was varied to examine how focus interacts with the early rise or final level rise in AAE. Three dialogue sets acted out by female speakers of AAE and MAE were recorded. Preliminary results show that both groups use the same final edge tone patterns for declaratives and wh-questions, but different patterns for yes/no questions (L*, H-, upstepped H% for MAE vs H*, H-, level H% for AAE) and vocatives. For focused sentences, AAE very often added postnuclear pitch accents when nonfinal words were focused. Furthermore, AAE used a sharp final fall preceded by a high tone (H+L*L−L*) when they have a negative attitude toward the sentence or situation.

Evidence for levels of prosodic hierarchies in Swedish

Pierrehumbert and her colleagues have proposed a model of prosodic organization that utilizes not only types of constituents and their marker(s), but also well‐defined edges. Beckman and Pierrehumbert (1986) have suggested that, in English, the phrase tone following the nuclear accent marks the right edge of an intermediate phrase (ip), giving evidence of phrasing internal to the intonational phrase (IP). Beckman and Edwards (1987) account for a final lengthening effect in English as one marker of the edge of the IP. Swedish differs from English in that sentence accent does not occur at a phrase edge. Thus, if there is a level at which there is one and only one sentence accent, utterances with single terminal junctures and multiple phrase tones must be analyzed as having one IP with multiple ip's. But there is no tonal marker for the edges of the ip's. An experiment has been constructed (in progress) to test the hypothesis that lengthening will occur at the end of the IP and, to a lesser extent, the ip, a...