Pitch m711w

Prosody

Introduction to General Linguistics Chilin Shih

What Is Prosody? From a robot’s point of view 

Duration – A playful R1D1 uses random duration for each sound. – A bored R1D1 uses fixed duration for each sound.

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Pitch – A playful R1P1 uses random pitch for a sentence. – A bored R1P1 uses monotone for a sentence.

R1I1 manipulates intensity. R1S1 manipulates spectral tilt…

What Is Prosody? From a human’s point of view 

Freberg (1950).

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You can convey a lot of information with prosody. – What can be conveyed? – What are the acoustic cues?

Linguistic Use of Prosody 

Duration – Long and short consonants and vowels – Linguistic structure (longer at final positions) – Paralinguistic information (mood, emotion)

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Intonation – – – – –

Lexical information (stress, accent, tone) Intonation type Paralinguistic information (mood, emotion) Discourse functions Other physiologically based effects

Lexical Information 

Stress languages – English, Russian • Stress location is part of the lexical entry, but the pitch contour (accent type) on the stressed syllable may vary.

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Accentual languages – Japanese, Korean, Swedish • The location of the accent is lexically marked. Accent type in a word is typically fixed.

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Tone languages – Chinese, Navajo, Igbo • Lexically determined tone on every syllable or every word.

Stress: English 

Fixed stress location: professor

Stress: English 

Fixed stress location: professor – Different accent type in questions.

Stress: Russian 

Fixed stress location: professor – May have different accent type than English even in declarative sentences

Accentual Languages: Japanese 

Unaccented word: – Ume – Lower and gradual f0 peak

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Accented word: – Uni – Higher and steep f0 peak

Pierrehumbert and Beckman (1988) Japanese Tone Structure. MIT press.

Chinese Lexical Tones Tone shapes differentiate lexical meaning.

Ma1: mother Ma2: hemp

Ma3: horse Ma4: to scold

Chinese Sentences Ma1-ma0 ma4 ma3. “ Mother scolds the horse.”

Ma3 ma4 ma1-ma0. “ The horse scolds mother.”

Intonation Types 

English declarative Final fall (H* L- L%) 9478-1509-7091

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English question Final rise (L* H- H%) 9478-1509-7091

Russian Intonation Types 

Declarative – This is Neva.

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Question – Is this Neva?

Russian Intonation Types 

Declarative – This is Lena.

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Question – Is this Lena?

Chinese Intonation Types 

Chinese declarative Li3bai4wu3 Luo2yan4 yao4 mai3 lu4. On Friday Luoyan wants to buy a deer.

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Chinese question Li3bai4wu3 Luo2yan4 yao4 mai3 lu4? On Friday Luoyan wants to buy a deer? Preserves lexical tone shapes. Question uses expanded pitch range near the end of the sentence (Yuan, Kochanski, Shih 2002).

Rhetorical Style: Martin Luther King Jr. I still have a dream.

Rhetorical Style: Martin Luther King Jr. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

Rhetorical Style: Martin Luther King Jr. This nation will rise up, and live out the true meaning of its creed.

Prosody of Emotion 

Different emotions, such as excitement, anger, suspicion, fear, sad, sarcasm, etc., have characteristic prosodic patterns.

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Acoustic features may include f0 mean, f0 range, loudness, jitter, spectral tilt, and accent shape.

Prosody of Emotion 

Excitement – Fast, very high pitch, loud

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Hot anger – Fast, high pitch, strong, falling accent, loud

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Fear – Jitter

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Sarcasm – Prolonged accent, late peak

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Sad – Slow, low pitch

Excitement Marilyn won nine million dollars!

Dirty rats are the best, aren’t they?

Sad Marilyn won nine million dollars.

Dirty rats are the best, aren’t they?

Sarcasm Marilyn won nine million dollars.

Dirty rats are the best, aren’t they?

Discourse Functions Topic initialization  Discourse structure  Phrasing  Emphasis  New vs. old information  Other communicative means 

Summary 

Prosody encodes different information simultaneously.

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Different signals, scopes and locations – Lexical tones vs. pitch range – Local effect vs. global effect – Strong beginning vs. strong ending

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Modeling prosody requires the understanding of individual components and how they combine.