Tonal Patterns Research Articles

Tone and clause structure in Bùlì

Abstract In this article, I analyze tonal patterns of Bùlì (Mabia/Gur) verbs in sentences. I argue that Bùlì requires a more articulated structure for TP, namely, a projection of both INFL1 and INFL2. INFL1 corresponds to the standard TP and is the locus of the EPP. INFL2, on the other hand, is the locus of a generalized finite/non-finite marking on the clause. I show that this more articulated structure for TP is key in understanding the intricate tonal interactions we find in the clause between segmental and tonal morphology of negation, tense, and aspect marking.

Some issues on the Morphology of Yoruba comparatives and superlatives

Abstract This paper provides a descriptive analysis of some issues concerning the morphology of Yorùbá comparatives and superlatives. Data were obtained from the researcher who is a native speaker of the language as well as from two adults (A man and a woman) in their fifties who are also native speakers of the language. I was able to describe and translate the data using my intuition as a native speaker of the language. The data were grouped into three categories, monosyllabic, disyllabic and trisyllabic adjectives. The implication of the analysis shows that in Yoruba, tone is a distinct marker of the comparative and the superlative. Also, the comparative and the superlative suffix reflects inflectional morphology, and can attach to any tone pattern of base adjectives that are monosyllabic, disyllabic, or trisyllabic. In addition, within the framework of construction morphology, the study provides a word construction schema to account for the comparative and the superlative forms.

Ancient poetry generation based on bidirectional LSTM model neural network

Automatic generation of ancient poems has been a research hotspot in the field of artificial intelligence, which is of great significance in cultural inheritance and literary creation. Due to the strict tonal patterns and complex structural rules of classical Chinese poetry, generating classical Chinese poetry has been a challenging task for both human poets and computer programs. In this paper, we propose a neural network model based on the introduction of an attention mechanism, which combines a bidirectional LSTM model and an attention mechanism to solve some problems in the traditional automatic generation model of ancient poems. The model is trained using the dataset of ancient poems studied by previous researchers, and the performance of the model is evaluated and analyzed by evaluating the metrics BLEU, Perplexity, Generation Effect and Linguistic Coherence. The experimental results show that the model exhibits good performance and excellent results on the task of automatic generation of ancient poems.

DNA of Music: Identifying Relationships among Different Versions of the Composition Sadhukarn from Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia Using Multivariate Statistics

Sadhukarn, a sacred music composition performed ritually to salute and invite divine powers to open a ceremony or feast, is played in Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos. Different countries have unique versions, arranged based on musicians’ skills and en vogue styles. This study presents the results of multivariate statistical analyses of 26 different versions of Sadhukarn main melodies using non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) and cluster analysis. The objective was to identify the optimal number of parameters for identifying the origin and relationships among Sadhukarn versions, including rhyme structures, pillar tone, rhythmic and melodic patterns, intervals, pitches, and combinations of these parameters. The data were analyzed using both full and normalized datasets (32 phrases) to avoid biases due to differences in phrases among versions. Overall, the combination of six parameters is the best approach for data analysis in both full and normalized datasets. The analysis of the ‘full version’ shows the separation of Sadhukarn versions from different countries of origin, while the analysis of the ‘normalized version’ reveals the rhyme structure, rhythmic structure, and pitch as crucial parameters for identifying Sadhukarn versions. We conclude that multivariate statistics are powerful tools for identifying relationships among different versions of Sadhukarn compositions from Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia and within the same countries of origin.

Tones shape notes: The realization of lexical tones in Chaozhou songs

In tone languages where pitch is used to distinguish word meanings, questions arise about how tonal pitch is preserved in singing. While most studies focus on tone-melody matching by examining pitch changes between tones/notes, the pitch change of tones realized within individual notes is less investigated. This article explores how singers realized tones when singing in Chaozhou, a Southern Chinese language with a complex tonal system. It used a Chaozhou song containing 10 tonal patterns to collect data from 34 Chaozhou singers. Results show that tones are realized to varying degrees when sung, and pitch range, pitch level, and neighboring pitch of tones appear to be influential factors. Vocal training affected the realization of falling tones /53/ and /42/ by reducing the pitch fall and also affected rising tone /23/ with a larger pitch change being found for non-professional singers than for professionals. However, the singers’ experience of singing in Chaozhou did not greatly affect the tone realization. An effect of the metrical structure was only found for tones /53/ and /42/. In addition, tone sandhi affects tones /53/ and /21/. The analysis also hints at the potential effect of melodic intervals on the pitch change of tones when sung.

Beyond Segment Inventories: Phonological Complexity Measures and Suprasegmental Variables in Contact Situations

Abstract This article has three goals. First, it provides a broad cross-linguistic survey of phonological change in contact situations focusing on the suprasegmental domain. The term suprasegmental refers here to syllable structure, stress patterns, tonal patterns, and vowel and nasal harmony systems. Secondly, it assesses phonological change to suprasegmental variables whereby external influence causes an increase in complexity in the recipient language’s structure. Thirdly, using insights from the phonological typology literature, it provides a preliminary framework to evaluate suprasegmental phenomena, which can then serve as an additional tool to disentangle inheritance from contact-induced change. Data from 45 languages suggest that the suprasegmental domain provides fertile ground for inspecting contact-influenced increases in linguistic complexity. Overall, we argue that the data reviewed here highlight the relevance of phonological structure as a variable in studies of language contact, which have been mostly preoccupied with morphosyntactic variables.

AI is great, isn’t it? Tone direction and illocutionary force delivery of tag ques-tions in Amazon’s AI NTTS Polly

This work provides a descriptive analysis of the tone direction and its inherent illocutionary force in question tags delivered by Amazon’s neural text-to-speech system Polly. We included three types of tag questions (reverse-polarity tags — both positive and negative —, copy tags and command tags) for which 10 sentences were used as input in each case. The data included 600 utterances produced by British and American English voices currently available on Amazon’s NTTS. The audio files were examined with the speech analysis software Praat to identify the tone pattern for each utterance and confirm the intended illocutionary force. The results show that Amazon’s AI speech synthesis technology is not yet fully reliable and produces a high rate of utterances whose pragmatic load is undesired when using natural spontaneous speech traits as question tags.

The Role of Prosodic Features in Conversational Interaction : Hard Talk a Case Study

This study aims to look into the relationships between prosodic features from phonological perspective and interactional relationships and sequence organization from conversation analysis (CA) view. There are specific prosodic cues that speakers employ to signal to one another when it is their turn to talk in any speech situation. These cues serve as signs to let other people know when it is the speaker's turn to talk. It is important to demonstrate that some prosodic patterns indicate the end or continuation of a turn. Prosodic orientation, such as intonation and tone patterns, are hypothesized to reveal information about participants' matching and non-matching of a prior turn. The consistent use of the same pitch height indicates that there is agreement among the participants on a specific situation. PRAAT, a computer program is used for doing acoustic analysis to conduct the prosodic analysis following Ladefoged’s model. It is supposed that when the speaker makes a low pitch, he is no more interested in the topic raised or no more excited, but when there is a high pitch that means there is more to be added and some significant issues can be shown However, prosodic orientation is obviously used in political interviews in a manner similar to that of ordinary speech. As well as Political interviews commonly employ pauses, interrupted speech, and reasoning, some of which show a particular orientation to the preceding turns.

Shared Religious Soundscapes: Indian Rāga Music in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Devotion in South Asia

Music has played a central role in Indian religious experience for millennia. The origins of Indian music include the recitation of the sacred syllable OM and Sanskrit Mantras in ancient Vedic fire sacrifices. The notion of Sound Absolute, first in the Upanishads as Śabda-Brahman and later as Nāda-Brahman, formed the theological background for music, Sangīta, designed as a vehicle of liberation founded upon the worship of Hindu deities expressed in rāgas, or specific melodic formulas. Nearly all genres of music in India, classical or devotional, share this theoretical and practical understanding, extending to other Indic religions like Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. What is less documented is how rāga music has been adopted by non-Indic communities in South Asia: Judaism (Bene Israel), Christianity (Catholic), and Islam (Chishti Sufi). After briefly outlining the relation between religion and the arts, the Indian aesthetics of Rasa, and the basic notions of sacred sound and music in Hinduism, this essay reveals the presence of rāga music, specifically the structure or melodic pattern of the morning rāga known as Bhairava, in compositions praising the divinity of each non-Indic tradition: Adonai, Jesus, and Allah. As similar tone patterns appear in the religious experiences of these communities, they reveal the phenomenon of “shared religious soundscapes” relevant to the comparative study of religion and music, or Musicology of Religion.

Phonetic Tonal Manifestations and Trends in Tone Change: A Case Study of the Yong-Deng Dialect in Northwest China

This study takes the Yong-deng dialect as a case study to investigate the phenomenon of tonal merging observed in Northwest Chinese dialects. It begins by examining the various monosyllabic tone patterns of the Yong-deng dialect, then supplements this with a review of the relevant literature, comparisons with the tone patterns of the neighbouring dialects, and an analysis of its tone sandhi in disyllabic and trisyllabic combinations. Each step of the dialect’s tonal variation is scrutinised, allowing for the identification of pertinent phonetic biases and the derivation of associated phonological rules. The central argument advanced here is that both synchronic tonal variation and diachronic tone change are governed by specific phonological rules. Despite the ostensibly variable phonetic manifestations, these rules can enable the prediction of the trajectory of tone change. The paper contributes to the understanding of tone merger and highlights its systemic and rule-bound nature.

Cognate translation priming with Chinese-Japanese bilinguals: No effect of interlingual phonological similarity.

Previous masked translation priming studies, especially those with different-script bilinguals, have shown that cognates provide more priming than noncognates, a difference attributed to cognates' phonological similarity. In our experiments employing a word naming task, we examined this issue for Chinese-Japanese bilinguals in a slightly different way, using same-script cognates as primes and targets. In Experiment 1, significant cognate priming effects were observed. The sizes of the priming effects were, however, statistically not different for phonologically similar (e.g., /xin4lai4/-/shiNrai/) and dissimilar cognate pairs (e.g., /bao3zheng4/- /hoshoR/), suggesting no impact of phonological similarity. In Experiment 2, using exclusively Chinese stimuli, we demonstrated a significant homophone priming effect using two-character logographic primes and targets, indicating that phonological priming is possible for two-character Chinese targets. However, priming only emerged for pairs that had the same tone pattern (e.g., /shou3wei4/-/shou3wei4/), suggesting that a match in lexical tone is crucial for observing phonologically based priming in that situation. Therefore, Experiment 3 involved phonologically similar Chinese-Japanese cognate pairs in which the similarity of their suprasegmental phonological features (i.e., lexical tone and pitch-accent information) was varied. Priming effects were statistically not different for tone/accent similar pairs (e.g., /guan1xin1/-/kaNsiN/) and dissimilar pairs (e.g., /man3zu2/-/maNzoku/). Our results indicate that phonological facilitation is not involved in producing cognate priming effects for Chinese-Japanese bilinguals. Possible explanations, based on underlying representations of logographic cognates, are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A challenging diagnosis of narcolepsy type 2 in a patient with Duane syndrome

Duane syndrome is a form of congenital strabismus with horizontal eye movement limitation. This may present a diagnostic challenge when assessing for rapid eye movements during stage REM utilizing PSG or MSLT. We present a case of a child with Duane syndrome who presented with excessive daytime sleepiness and underwent evaluation for hypersomnia. His eye movement limitation provided a challenge in identifying stage REM. In patients with eye movement limitations or prosthetic eyes, it is necessary to look for other features of stage REM such as low chin EMG tone and EEG pattern.

The Role of Prosodic Features in Conversational Interaction : Hard Talk a Case Study

This study aims to look into the relationships between prosodic features from phonological perspective and interactional relationships and sequence organization from conversation analysis (CA) view. There are specific prosodic cues that speakers employ to signal to one another when it is their turn to talk in any speech situation. These cues serve as signs to let other people know when it is the speaker's turn to talk. It is important to demonstrate that some prosodic patterns indicate the end or continuation of a turn. Prosodic orientation, such as intonation and tone patterns, are hypothesized to reveal information about participants' matching and non-matching of a prior turn. The consistent use of the same pitch height indicates that there is agreement among the participants on a specific situation. PRAAT, a computer program is used for doing acoustic analysis to conduct the prosodic analysis following Ladefoged’s model. It is supposed that when the speaker makes a low pitch, he is no more interested in the topic raised or no more excited, but when there is a high pitch that means there is more to be added and some significant issues can be shown However, prosodic orientation is obviously used in political interviews in a manner similar to that of ordinary speech. As well as Political interviews commonly employ pauses, interrupted speech, and reasoning, some of which show a particular orientation to the preceding turns

Classifying “Lao” Ethnic Languages Spoken in Central Thailand Using Tonal Criteria: A Case Study of “Chachoengsao Lao”

Abstract In the linguistic literature on the languages of ethnic Lao in Thailand, labels such as “Lao” or “Lao Wiang” are often used to identify local dialects as Lao varieties. This study examines patterns of tonal splits and mergers in the linguistic varieties spoken by the so-called “Lao” ethnic groups in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand, to re-identify and reclassify the so called “Lao” languages collected from 124 participants at 50 locations. This study used the tone box concept (Gedney 1972) as a basic tool to analyse tonal patterns. The results indicate that the “Lao” ethnic languages of Chachoengsao can be classified into three main groups, namely Lao, Phuan and Hua Phan Tai Nuea. While the Lao varieties show typical tonal patterns of Lao dialects (B≠DL, C1=DL123 and/or C234=DL4), the other two groups show none of the patterns. The findings show that the patterns of tonal development labels are better criteria than ethnic labels in the identification of Lao groups.

Understanding the Urhobo Tonal Structure through Constraint-Based Framework

Urhobo is a southwest Edoid language spoken in southern Nigeria. Its tonal patterns have been studied, but from a descriptive perspective, which, from a theoretical standpoint, potentially limits the understanding that tonal deviations from underlying forms are essentially due to resolutions of conflicts between some competing constraints. This study adopts the Optimality Theory (OT) to reveal the competing universal constraints: IDENT-T, MAX-T; NoFUSION; LINEARITY; DISASSOC; ALIGN-R CONTOUR; OCP; SPECIFY-T; *FLOAT; and NoCONTOUR. The study shows that these constraints crucially govern the Urhobo tonal patterns such as (i) downstep; (ii) single multiply-linked high (H) tone; (iii) single multiply-linked low (L) tone; (iv) boundary H.H and L.L tones fusion; (v); H-tone preservation; (vi) LH-tone preservation; (vii) floating H tone; and, (viii) final HL contour tone. Moreover, it highlights two Urhobo -specific tonal alternations listed in (v) and (vi), which exhibit preservation of H and LH tones at the expense of L tone, post-lexically. Consequently, it proposes four markedness constraints NoH.L-T, NoL.H-T, NoH.LH-T, and NoL. to explain the preservation effects. Our findings support phonologists’ view that, cross-linguistically, universal (and language-specific) constraints are those that motivate tonal deviations from input forms in tone languages, and that minimally marked tonal outputs are the result of markedness dominance over faithfulness.

Poeter versus skådespelare i Dagens dikt 2020–2021

“Poets versus Actors Reading Poetry on Swedish Radio 2020–2021” Following the rise of the poet as the principal performer of his or her own work, in the second half of the 20th century, actors have been criticized for performing poetry as if acting on stage, or for focusing too much on conveying the lyric I. This primarily quantitative study investigates what prosodic differences there are between poets and actors reading poetry. The material consists of 276 readings from the Swedish public radio program Dagens dikt (The Daily Poem), from 2020 and 2021. A set of prosodic measures are produced for each recording with computational aid, and the groups are compared by using descriptive statistics. The differences found in terms of tempo and pausal patterns, though small, suggest that the actors read in a conventionally poetic, expressive style, while the poets are closer to a style typical of prose reading and conversational speech; this might be connected to differences between their respective repertoire – the poets reading newer, longer, and possibly more narrative texts. When it comes to pitch, there are more substantial differences: the poets are more monotonous and their tonal patterns more predictable, indicating a formal, less expressive style. These traits are associated with the highly stylized vocal cliché Poet Voice, which in turn is connected to poetological shifts in the last few decades. In both groups, however, younger individuals (born 1970 or later) and women, respectively, are the more monotonous and predictable; this might suggest a sociolinguistic trend not limited to poetry. Qualitative, close listening to a selection of readings largely confirms the findings of the quantitative investigation. While the frequently idiosyncratic poets tend to highlight form, such as rhythm and tonal repetitions, the actors rather try to convey the content of the poem, in accordance with prosodical and performative conventions.

Development of ‘Digital Kultur Application’ toward innovative and interactive education in cultural identity strengthening through socio-technology approach

This research employing qualitative method and data collection techniques of observation, in-depth interview, and literature study, selected five Gen-Z informants with purposive sample criteria to meet research objectives. Moreover, the interview results are linked to socio-technology and multimedia learning literature. The result of this research showed that Digital Kultur app still needs to be improved in terms of visuals, features, and usage, and the learning elements to be an innovative and interactive educational application. This can be done by adding a feature that recognizes sounds, tone patterns, and motions to be interpreted as certain cultural products that subsequently will be connected directly to certain information. In addition, to making it more interactive, the various sounds, tone patterns, and motions can be matched with favorite figures of each Gen-Z, such as animation characters or "K-Pop idols" thus becoming certain elaborate tone patterns and traditional motions, but with the sounds and visuals of their favorite figures. This offers innovation in more interactive multimedia learning for cultural education.

Psychometrically Equivalent Fante Speech Recognition Threshold Materials by a Female Talker.

This study aimed to create and evaluate digitally recorded speech materials for speech recognition threshold (SRT) testing among children and adults in Fante. Fifty-one (51) familiar trisyllabic words were chosen from a list of 107 widely used trisyllabic Fante words. They were digitally captured and edited to create the same root mean square as a 1-kHz calibration tone. The study used a three-phase cross-sectional study method. Twenty native Fante speakers with normal hearing thresholds were selected at random for listener evaluation. For each of the words, the researchers used logistic regression to measure the slope, intercepts, and psychometric function slope at 50% and from 20% to 80%. In the study, the intensity of each word was modified digitally, so that the threshold at 50% of each word was equal to the mean pure-tone average (PTA) of the participants to increase the homogeneity of the thresholds of the selected words. A final list of 25 familiar homogenous words with the same tone patterns of slopes greater than 7%/dB was finally selected and recorded for speech audiometry in Fante. Psychometrically equivalent trisyllabic words in Fante were successfully developed and evaluated for SRT testing in Ghana. There is a need for the development of speech audiometry materials in other Ghanaian languages.

Modifying Deutsch's scale illusion for application in music.

Deutsch's scale illusion demonstrates that the overall pitch range is the preferred organization when in competition with both local (note-to-note) pitch proximity and laterality (differences in the input ear). Such intricate factors can make it difficult to mimic this illusion. If a note is under a condition in which grouping by the overall pitch range and the local pitch proximity do not conflict, we hypothesized that an illusion would be perceived simply as the result of the competition between pitch proximity and laterality. In this paper, we aimed to replicate such a condition by modifying Deutsch's scale illusion. Psychophysical studies were conducted with healthy subjects. In the first half of the study, the C major scale with successive tones was presented in ascending form, alternating between the right and left ears; counterpart notes were simultaneously presented to the opposite ear, and the subjects were asked to listen to these dichotic tone patterns. Several counterpart notes were applied; we found that when the sequences of counterpart notes were close in note-to-note pitch proximity and were not overlapped with the ascending scale in pitch, the subjects appeared to perceive the scale clearly. In the latter half of the study, we applied this condition in music and devised auditory illusions such that melodies of the passages of "Lightly Row," "Cherry Blossoms," and "Jingle Bells" were perceived by listening to "jagged" dichotic tone patterns. The method we described in this paper is simple, and it is possible to easily create auditory illusions in music by applying our method.

An Experimental Study of Chinese Disyllabic Tone Errors in Native French Speakers and an Investigation of Online Teaching Strategies

In the learning of Chinese as a second language, phonetic learning serves as the basis of the whole learning process, among which the learning of Chinese tones is of paramount importance. In this regard, this paper aims to explore the pronunciation of Chinese tones by native French speakers in the target language environment. First, through the experimental analysis as well as the recording of the tones of native French speakers, this paper selects a total of 237 disyllabic words, with a total of four combinations determined except for the combination of the same disyllabic neutral tone in the target language environment. Meanwhile, this paper utilizes PRAAT software to acquire the average frequency of tone sampling points, whereby the tone-pattern error of each tone combination can be clarified. Secondly, by comparing and analyzing the foregoing results with the tone patterns of Chinese students, this paper further finds out the tone-pattern errors of the same tone combination in disyllabic words, thus summarizing the corresponding error rules. Through the above experimental analysis, this paper concludes that the combination of Tone 3 and Tone 3 presents the highest pronunciation error rate, followed by the combination of Tone 2 and Tone 2. In addition, this paper reveals that the tone error is the main tone error and that there are also duration errors. Lastly, combined with the specific reasons for the errors, this paper proposes targeted online teaching strategies suitable for international Chinese education.