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Wordedge tones in Catalan
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... anchored with onset of accented syllable ... prenuclear rising accents. Broad focus ... Accented syllables in word-final position are slighly longer than ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation
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Title: Wordedge tones in Catalan
1
Word-edge tones in Catalan
- Pilar Prieto
- ICREA and UAB
2004 TIE Workshop Santorini, 9-11 September 2004
2
Catalan prenuclear rising accents
- L consistently anchored with onset of accented
syllable - H generally displaced to the postaccented
syllable (Prieto 1995 and Estebas-Vilaplana 2000,
2003).
- Broad focus statements
- Volen una nena La Marina vol
demanar-lhi - They want a girl Mary wants to ask him
3
Factors affecting H location
- Right-hand prosodic context (peaks are retracted
before upcoming pitch accents Prieto 2005). - Recent experiments show that H strictly aligns
with the end of the word (Estebas-Vilaplana 2000,
2003). - Thus, Estebas analyzes rises as sequences of a
low pitch accent (L) plus a word edge tone (H)
anchored at the end of the word. - Yet, other rises place H in the postaccentual
syllable. - Speech-style differences?
- Potential presence of H- boundaries?
4
Goals of the study
- To clarify the role of word-edge tones in broad
focus declaratives in Catalan - A production experiment examines whether H
anchoring to word-edges is produced by speakers
to disambiguate sentences. - An identification experiment checks whether H
alignment can be a helpful perceptual cue to
identify word-boundaries.
5
Production experiment
- Materials 20 pairs of potentially ambiguous
utterances which are only distinguished by word
boundary location - Code
- Mirà batalles (s)he watched battles w-fin
- Mirava talles (s)he used to watch
carvings w-med - Comprà ventalls (s)he bought fans w-fin
- Compraven talls they bought pieces w-med
- Buscà vanguàrdies (s)he was looking for
newspapers w-fin - Buscaven guàrdies they were looking for
guards w-med - 3 speakers read the 20 pairs 4 times (40 x 4
160 sentences per speaker, for a total of 480
utterances)
6
Comprà ventalls Compraven talls
Comprà ventallets de vim Compraven
tallets de vim
7
Results
- Strong correlation between H delay and syllable
duration for the 3 speakers (correlation coef.
0,67-0,82) - Difference in H delay between two groups Hs in
word-final position (e.g., comprà ventalls) are
less delayed than in word-medial position (e.g.,
compraven talls)
8
Effects of within-word position on H location
- All peaks displaced to the postaccented syllable
- Clear effects of within-word position on H peak
placement peaks less displaced in word-final
position (e.g., comprà ventalls). - Differences statistically significant for the 3
speakers (two-tailed t-tests significant at p lt
0,0005) - No strict word anchoring effects in w-fin.
9
- No strict anchoring effects found on w-med peaks
are located before the end of the word (-72 ms)
if the accented syllable is word-medial and after
(48 ms) if it is word-final. - w-med compraven talls
- w-fin comprà ventalls
- Differences statistically significant for the 3
speakers (two-tailed t-tests significant at p lt
0,0005).
w-fin
w-med
10
- F0 alignment differences
- w-medial w-final
- compraven talls comprà ventalls
100 ms
60 ms
?
?
11
Effects of within-word position on duration
- Accented syllables in word-final position are
slighly longer than syllables in internal
position, except for speaker AG. - w-fin comprà ventalls
- w-med compraven talls
- Differences are not statistically significant (at
p gt 0,05) except for one speaker
12
- Postaccented syllables in word-final position are
slighly longer than syllables in word-initial
position, except for speaker AG. - Differences are not statistically significant (at
p gt 0,05) except for one speaker. - No consistent effects of within-word position on
duration patterns.
13
Identification experiment
- Are differences in range and in peak location
used by listeners to perceive differences in
word-boundary location? - 12 listeners heard 12 ambiguous utterances from
the production experiment (a maximum of 3 times)
and had to identify the sentence. - Comprà ventallets de vim Compraven
tallets de vim - Nomenaves comtes al matí Nomenà vescomtes
al matí - Mirà batalles Mirava talles
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Results
- Low rate of identification (between 35 and 66 of
correct responses, depending on sentence). - Type A utterances tend to be less easily
identified than Type B utterances (60 vs 40).
Type A comprà ventalls Type B compraven
talls
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- Why?
- The hearer identifies more easily Compraven talls
(with an H aligned towards the end of the first
word) than Comprà ventalls (with an H less
displaced to the right). - The hearer is probably using a more clear H
alignment towards the edge of the word as a cue.
In the second case, H placement is more
ambiguous. - A controlled perception experiment is needed.
- Less ambiguous More ambiguous
- ? ?
16
Conclusions
- No strict anchoring to word-edges.
- Clear effects of within-word position on H
location H peaks are more retracted in
word-final accents than in word-medial accents. - No effects of within-word position on duration.
- H alignment towards word-edges might act as a
helpful perceptual cue in disambiguating tasks.
17
- THANK YOU. GRÀCIES!
18
Effects of within-word position on range
- Pitch range of the entire accent (and pitch span
during accented vowel) is greater in word-final
position than internal position, except for 1
speaker.
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