Catalan Intonation within a Romance Perspective

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Catalan Intonation within a Romance Perspective

• Pilar Prieto
• ICREA and UAB

2004 TIE Workshop on Typology of Tone and
Intonation Cascais, April 1-3, 2004
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Acknowledgments

• Thanks to the following colleagues for providing
  and discussing other language examples
• Sónia Frota
• Mariapaola DImperio
• Barbara Gili Fivela
• José Ignacio Hualde
• Michelina Savino
• Pauline Welby
• Erik Willis

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Outline of the talk

• Catalan and Romance Intonation
• Typology of rising accents in Romance
• The use of alignment for contrastive purposes
• Mora-edge and syllable-edge tonal associations
• Word-edge tonal associations

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Romance typology (Hualde 2003)

• A - Prenuclear accent
• B - Nuclear broad focus
• C - Nuclear narrow focus

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Portuguese broad vs. narrow focus
Nuclear broad and narrow focus contours in EP
(Frota 2002)

• Broad focus
• A E o Roberto e a Maria?
• B Casaram
• Narrow focus
• A Eles separaram-se?
• B Casaram

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Italian broad vs. narrow focus

• DImperio (2002) broad focus with a falling
  nuclear accent, narrow focus with a tonal peak on
  the stressed syllable (HL vs. LH ).
• Broad focus Mario andava a Milano Narrow
  focus Mario andava a Milano
  HL
  LH

Nuclear broad and narrow focus contours in
Italian (DImperio 2002)
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Catalan broad vs. narrow focus

• Prieto (2002) broad focus with a falling nuclear
  accent, narrow focus with a tonal peak on the
  stressed syllable (HL vs. LH ).
• Broad focus Volen una nena
  Narrow focus Volen una nena

Nuclear broad and narrow focus contours in
Catalan (DImperio 2002)
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Spanish rising accents

• Prenuclear accents (rises with delayed peaks
  LH) vs nuclear accents (rises with aligned
  peaks LH) (Face 2001, Beckman et al. 2002,
  Hualde 2003)

Maria miraba la luna Mary was looking at the
moon
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Romance typology (Hualde 2003)

• A - Prenuclear accent, LH
• B - Nuclear broad focus, HL
• C - Nuclear narrow focus, LH

Starredness based on phonetic H alignment
properties.
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Spanish
Standard analyses of Span rising accents (Sosa
1999, Face 2001, Beckman et al. 2002, Hualde
2003a)
Hualde (2003)
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Three-way alignment in rising accents in Catalan

• A. rise with delayed peak
• B. rise with non-delayed peak
• C. posttonic rise

A B C
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Prenuclear positions

• A. Prenuclear accent statements rise with
  delayed peak

La Marina vol demanar-lhi Mary wants to ask him
B. Narrow-focus prenuclear accent rise with
non-delayed peak
La MARINA vol demanar-lhi MARY wants to ask him
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C. Prenuclear accent yes-no question posttonic
rise
Volen una nena? Do they want a girl?
Compare with Prenuclear statement rise with
delayed peak
Volen una nena They want a girl
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Narrow focus (incredulity) posttonic rise
La MARIA va venir ahir MARY came yesterday
Compare with Prenuclear statement rise with
delayed peak
La Maria va venir ahir Mary came yesterday
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Prenuclear exhortative posttonic rise
Dóna-lhi a la Maria Give it to Mary
Prenuclear imperative non-delayed peak
Dóna-lhi a la Maria Give it to Mary
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Nuclear position two-way distinction
Nuclear imperative Nuclear
exhortative rise with non-delayed peak
posttonic rise
Digue-mho! Say this to me
Digue-mho! Say this to me
Vine! Come Vine!
Come
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Dominican Spanish

• Dominican Spanish displays similar contrasts
  (Willis 2003a,b).
• rise with delayed peak
• rise with non-delayed peak
• posttonic rise

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Adora la mina He/she loves the mine
Lamina la luna He/she laminates the moon
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How to account for the 3-way contrast in Catalan
and Dominican Spanish in autosegmental terms?

• A. LH
• B. LH
• C. ?

A B C
NB A is (LH) in Willis (2003)
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Tentative proposal

• A1. Move away the strict relationship between
  phonetic alignment from phonological association.
• A2. Starredness based on perceptual terms HIGH
  vs. LOW tones.
• HIGH TONES LOW TONES
• LH HL LH HL

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Rising accents in Catalan
Volen una nena? Do they want a girl?
Volen una nena They want a girl?
La MARIA va venir ahir MARY came yesterday
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Falling accents in Catalan
Yes-no question
Wh-question
Que lha llogada? Did you rent it? Qui
lha llogada? Who did it rent it?
Wh-question
Imperative wh-question
Qui lha llogada? Who did it rent it? Qui
lha llogada? Who did it rent it?
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Phonetic differences in H alignment across
languages
Segmental and syllabic anchoring of trailing
tones across different languages in contexts
without tonal coarticulation. Segments
Cconsonant, Vvowel, Ncoda, Ssyllable
Structure 0accented syllable, 1postaccentual
syllable (ex C0V0N0.C1V1).
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Phonological differences in H alignment across
languages

• OPTION A. To use alignment features in the
  phonological representation (ie., delayed peak,
  ?, anticipated peak, ?, Ladd 1983) but only in
  languages that exploit this option. x
• CATALAN RISING PRENUCLEAR ACCENTS
• HIGH TONES LOW TONE
• LH? LH LH

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• OPTION B. To develop the notion of phonological
  anchoring extending the notion of secondary
  association.
• Tones can be associated to ends of moras (?,
  ?), syllables (?, ?), or words (?, ?).
• CATALAN RISING PRENUCLEAR ACCENTS
• HIGH TONES
• LH LH? LH

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Pisa Italian rises

• Gili Fivela (2002, 2004) peaks for broad focus
  and narrow differed by earlier/later
  synchronization of a peak contour coupled with a
  faster/slower timing of the fall.

Broad focus statement
Narrow focus statement
La pronuncia di lavaglielo non la ricordo mai
La pronuncia di lavaglielo non la ricordo mai
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• H tones are phonologically anchored either to end
  of the first mora ( ?) or syllable ( ?).
• PISA ITALIAN RISING ACCENTS
• LH? LH?

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Neapolitan Italian rises

• Later synchronization of F0 peaks differentiates
  questions from statements coupled with raising
  the F0 range and slower descent.

Narrow focus statement
Yes-no question
Vedrai mamma domani Vedrai mamma domani You
will see your mum tomorrow Will you see your
mum tomorrow?
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(DImperio et House, 1997 DImperio, 2000)
H
original
H
L
L
DImperio (2002) A 40. ms. difference in peak
alignment statistically increased question
responses in perception experiments (DImperio
2000) CONCLUSION A small alignment H difference
is crucial for identification . A small temporal
difference is crucial for identification.
question
40 ms
stylized
statement
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• H tones are phonologically anchored either to end
  of the first mora ( ?) or syllable ( ?).
• NEAPOLITAN ITALIAN RISING ACCENTS
• LH? LH?

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Partial conclusion

• Catalan, Neapolitan and Pisa rising accents show
  that small temporal H alignment differencs are
  crucial for different categorical identification
  of pitch accents.
• Proposal
• Move away from strict relationship between
  phonetic alignment from phonological association
• BASIC TYPOLOGY
• HIGH accents (LH, HL)
• LOW accents (LH, HL)
• Small differences in H alignment might are
  present in the phonetic component (cf. anchoring
  studies across languages)
• Small differences in H alignment are also
  exploited in the phonological component notion
  of phonological anchoring or association.

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Word-edge tonal association in Romance

• The use of pitch accents optional
  prominence-lending rises aligned with the
  beginning of prosodic words in French, Occitan,
  Catalan, Spanish
• Emphatic function (Catalan, Spanish)
• Demarcative function (French, Occitan)
• The use of word edge tones optional rises
  aligned with the end of prosodic words
• Optional demarcative function (Catalan, Spanish)

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French and Occitan

• French (Post 2000, Welby 2002) and Occitan
  (Hualde 2003)
• Welby (2004) the two pronunciations do not
  differ in meaning.

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• Critical phrase "le mélomane".
• Le randonneur, le mélomane et la
  forestière s'étaient disputés avec eux
  
  'The hiker, the music lover and the
  forester had argued with them.'

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Occitan marks

• Occitan

per far de redondials to make
harness rings
ne trapan un que fasiá a las bòlas ambe des
mòlas de molin they find someone who
was playing boules with mill stones
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Northern European Portuguese

• Early pitch rises in the words 'brasileira' and
  'maravilhosa'
• 'O namorado megalómano da brasileira memorizada
  uma melodia maravilhosa do lagareiro'. (Fig. 6,
  Frota Vigário 2004)

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Catalan, Spanish

• Spanish or Catalan use word-initial rising
  accents only with emphatic meanings (e.g., és
  indomable its indomable with a rising accent
  on the word-initial syllable).

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Word edge tones in Catalan and Spanish

• Pilot production experiment indicates that word
  edge boundary tones are used in Catalan and in
  Spanish to disambiguate utterances (Prieto
  Estebas in prep.).

• Pilot perception experiment hearers identify an
  utterance such as Llama a Melina Romero but
  Llámame Lina Romero is ambiguous. The hearer
  rejects H alignment with accented syllable but
  accepts as options either H alignment to the word
  edge or later. Thus, word-edge tones are used as
  optional cues.

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Da balazos He shoots
Llama a Melina Romero My name is..

Daba lazos Give laces
Llámame Lina Romero Call me...
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• H tones can be anchored to the end of a syllable
  ( ?), or the end of a word ( ?).
• CATALAN RISING PRENUCLEAR ACCENTS
• HIGH TONES
• LH LH ? LH ?
• ?
  ?
• 
  

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Conclusion

• Small H temporal alignment differences can
  trigger tonal contrasts in some Romance languages
• These tonal alignment differences can be
  expressed as phonological association to edges of
  moras, syllables and words
• Tonal association to word edges is used in
  different Romance languages as optional cues to
  word demarcation and emphasis.