18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1 Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?...

18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1

Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?Individual differences

in signalling pitch accent category

Oliver NiebuhrMariapaola D’Imperio

Barbara Gili FivelaFrancesco Cangemi

Special Session “Shapes and tones – Towards a more holistic perspective in intonation research”

17th International Congress of Phonetic Science,Hong Kong, China, August 2011


• Individual speakers employ different production strategies towards a similar acoustic/perceptual goal.

• Talker variability is at least partly determined by anatomical features but linguistic factors such as dialectal and speech community membership give rise to noticeable variation.

• The relative strength of perceptually trading acoustic cues can differ from speaker to speaker, at least for segmental variability (Jonhnson, 1997).

• But what about prosodic variability? What about tonal alignment?

Introduction


• Strict segmental anchoring (Ladd et al. 1999): tonal targets are timed to occur at a fixed distance from segmental boundaries irrespective of rate changes and/or syllabic structure differences for a specific pitch accent type.

• If tonal alignment is variable on an individual basis, can it be in a trade-off relationship with an alternative cue to the same pitch accent category? What about dynamic cues, such as “accent shape”?

• But individual variability in alignment production is rarely pointed out.

• Here the issue is investigated through a database for three language varieties (Standard German, Pisa and Neapolitan Italian) and three pairs of well studied pitch accent contrasts.


Method

• 3 well-established PA contrasts:

• 10 short A-B dialogues

H+L* vs. H* in Standard Northern German, L+H* vs. L*+H in Neapolitan Italian and H* vs. H*+L in Pisa Italian

• Recordings made in sound-treated rooms at the Universities of Kiel, Naples, and Pisa.

• The German dialogues were read by 35 speakers; the Italian recordings included 17 Neapolitan and 20 Pisa speakers.


German intonation contrast

• Two types of nuclear pitch accents: ‘Early Peak’ vs. ‘Medial Peak’ or H+L* vs. H* according to Grice and Baumann (2002, GToBI)

• Well-known from the seminal experiments of Kohler (1987), and numerous other production and perception studies– H+L*= F0 peak reached before accented-vowel onset, F0 falls

into vowel– H* = F0 peak reached 30-60 after accented vowel-onset, falls

sets in before vowel offsetKohler (1991:341) Grice and Baumann (2002:25)


Results for German I

• Intonation labels were cross-checked by two other trained prosodic labellers

• H+L* and H* productions were first analyzed in terms of overall mean values (x) and standard deviations (s) for– F0 peak range (semitones, st)– Shape index (duration rise / duration fall)– Peak alignment relative to accented vowel onset


Results for German II

t

F0

Number of cases = 525

C V:x= -29 ms, s=55 ms

x= 68 ms, s=78 ms

Accented [CV:] syllable

H+L*Shape index: x=1.31, s=0.33

H*Shape index: x=0.83, s=0.25

(nuclear, voiced initial syllable of disyllabic noun, followed byvoiced CVC syllable + 2 unaccented syllables until end of phrase)

x= 10.5 st,s= 1.8 st

x= 10.6 st,s= 1.7 st

• Mean alignment values are congruent with those of previous studies.


• BUT: individual production patterns blur this picture– (1) Across all 35 speakers, peaks are not solidly anchored

relative to segmental boundary. Rather they form two alignment continua.

– (2) The alignment continua of H+L* and H* overlap substantially.

• H* peaks could be aligned before the accented-vowel onset (up to 100ms earlier than H+L* peaks)

• H+L* peaks could occur after the vowel onset.

– Trade-off between peak alignment and shape index, reflected in a highly significantly negative correlation (r= -0.72; p<0.001)

- align distance + align distance


Results for German IV– Based on this trade-off…– 5 speakers showed clearly different alignment before (H+L*) or

after (H*) the vowel onset.

Shapers

Aligners

t test shape: p<0.001; t test alignment: p<0.001

– For 5 other speakers, alignment was completely overlapping but showed strong shape differences…


• Nuclear, focus interrogative• Peak aligned around accented

syllable offset

• Nuclear, narrow focus declarative

• Peak aligned around accented syllable onset

Neapolitan Italian intonation contrast L+H* vs L*+H

Their shape and function have been established by means of analyses in production and perception (e.g., D’Imperio 2000,

D’Imperio, 2002, Petrone, 2008)


• Considerable inter-speaker differences in peak alignment.

• A set of 6 speakers made little or no use of systematic alignment greater shape differences

Results for Neapolitan Italian

Alignment differences between L+H* and L*+H by speaker

Discussion & Conclusion


• When viewed superficially in terms of overall mean values, our results replicate previous findings on peak alignment in differently timed pitch accent movements.

• However, when broken down into the individual patterns, the clearly bimodal production picture appears to be blurred.

• Peak alignment relative to vowel onset forms a continuum in all three varieties under investigation, if individual patterns are taken into account.

• Also, systematic alignment is either in a trade-off relationship with peak shape (as in German and in Neapolitan) or in an enhancing relationship (as in Pisa).

Discussion & Conclusion


• Future studies will determine, if the production strategies are correlated with indexical features, i.e. in our data female speakers are mostly “shapers”.

• Studying the production and perception of intonational cues must be complemented by a closer look at talker variability, in addition to variety induced variability.

• Only perception studies will be able to determine whether tonal target alignment can be compensated for or even substituted by more dynamic accentual features, such as peak and rise/fall shape.


Thank you for your attention

18.08.2011 Niebuhr, D‘Imperio, Gili Fivela, Cangemi 1 Are there “Shapers” and “Aligners” ?...

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