Like a square peg in a round hole: Why contour shape matters for learning new intonation patterns (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
The present pilot study revives an old approach to intonation and reintroduces it as a new experimental method: the successive drawing of perceived intonation contours. It has been shown that intonation drawings made by untrained native German listeners for sets of controlled stimulus utterances can yield valid and reliable results patterns. Additionally, intonation drawings are more straightforward than other reproduction methods and allow more detailed insights into the perception of intonation than other meaning-based 2AFC tasks. Based on the results received for two classes of meaningful intonational units -(nuclear) pitch accents and phrase-final intonation movements -it is argued that the relationship between the production and perception of intonation is characterized by a multiparametric coding that goes far beyond F0 and additionally crosses the traditional segment-prosody divide. Since the acoustic complexity can be translated into simpler perceptual patterns, phonological models of intonation are formulated more successfully and consistently at the level of perception than at the level of acoustic F0.
DISCRIMINATION OF ENGLISH INTONATION CONTOURS BY NATIVE SPEAKERS AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS
2007
Previous work has shown that advanced Korean learners of English (L2ers) are less effective than native English speakers (L1ers) at using English intermediate phrases (ips) to establish syntactic boundaries . This study investigated whether the effect is due to perceptual differences between L1ers and L2ers, based on the interplay between phonology and perception (e.g., ). L1ers and L2ers listened to pairs of phrases in an AX task that crossed boundary strength with intonational contour. Little variation was found between L1ers' and L2ers' discrimination patterns, which correlated highly with each other. Both groups were more sensitive to falling vs. level contour contrasts than rising vs. level contrasts (in the context tested) and were more responsive to contrasts in contour than in boundary strength. The results suggest that the L2ers' poor use of ips in comprehension likely rests primarily on difficulty with prosody-syntax mappings.
Backward mimicry and forward influence in prosodic contour choice in standard American English
2015
Entrainment is the tendency of speakers engaged in conversation to align different aspects of their communicative behavior. In this study we explore in more detail a measure of prosodic entrainment defined in previous work, which uses a discrete parametrization of intonational contours defined by the ToBI conventions for prosodic description. We divide this measure into two asymmetric variants: backward mimicry (in which a speaker uses a contour used previously by the interlocutor) and forward influence (in which a speaker’s contour appears later in the speech of the interlocutor). This distinction sheds new light on significant correlations with a number of social variables related to the level of engagement of speakers in a corpus of task-oriented dialogues in Standard American English.
Intonation contours, prosodic structure and preboundary lengthening
Journal of Phonetics, 1992
The aim of the perception experiment reported here was to establish first whether English listeners expect longer preboundary syllable durations as the rank of the phonological boundary is higher; and, second , whether they expect longer preboundary syllable durations when the phonological boundary coincides with an intonation contour boundary. Judges were instructed to decide whether the duration of the pre boundary syllable was "all right", "too long", or "too short". The stimuli were resynthesized utterances in which the durational characteristics of the boundary were varied. Although the results are not totally consistent, they suggest affirmative answers to both questions. The result for the second is particularly interesting, because the intonation contour boundary was not in all cases marked by a pitch movement on the experimental syllable itself. The perception of the intonation contour boundary can therefore take place on the basis of the listener's interpretation of the utterance, together with the more global characteristics of the pitch contour. A third finding was that intonation contour boundaries elicited far more "all right" judgements than other boundaries. We tentatively suggest that this behaviour is the perceptual counterpart of the relaxation of articulatory control at the end of articulatory planning units .
Phonetic and phonological imitation of intonation in two varieties of Italian
Frontiers in Psychology, 2014
The aim of this study was to test whether both phonetic and phonological representations of intonation can be rapidly modified when imitating utterances belonging to a different regional variety of the same language. Our main hypothesis was that tonal alignment, just as other phonetic features of speech, would be rapidly modified by Italian speakers when imitating pitch accents of a different (Southern) variety of Italian. In particular, we tested whether Bari Italian (BI) speakers would produce later peaks for their native rising L + H * (question pitch accent) in the process of imitating Neapolitan Italian (NI) rising L * + H accents. Also, we tested whether BI speakers are able to modify other phonetic properties (pitch level) as well as phonological characteristics (changes in tonal composition) of the same contour. In a follow-up study, we tested if the reverse was also true, i.e., whether NI speakers would produce earlier peaks within the L * + H accent in the process of imitating the L + H * of BI questions, despite the presence of a contrast between two rising accents in this variety. Our results show that phonetic detail of tonal alignment can be successfully modified by both BI and NI speakers when imitating a model speaker of the other variety. The hypothesis of a selective imitation process preventing alignment modifications in NI was hence not supported. Moreover the effect was significantly stronger for low frequency words. Participants were also able to imitate other phonetic cues, in that they modified global utterance pitch level. Concerning phonological convergence, speakers modified the tonal specification of the edge tones in order to resemble that of the other variety by either suppressing or increasing the presence of a final H%. Hence, our data show that intonation imitation leads to fast modification of both phonetic and phonological intonation representations including detail of tonal alignment and pitch scaling.
Perception of English Intonation by English, Spanish, and Chinese Listeners
Language and Speech, 2003
Native language affects the perception of segmental phonetic structure, of stress, and of semantic and pragmatic effects of intonation. Similarly, native language might influence the perception of similarities and differences among intonation contours. To test this hypothesis, a cross-language experiment was conducted. An English utterance was resynthesized with seven falling and four rising intonation contours. English, Iberian Spanish, and Chinese listeners then rated each pair of nonidentical stimuli for degree of difference. Multidimensionals caling of the results supported the hypothesis. The three groups of listeners produced statistically different perceptual configurations for the falling contours. All groups, however, perceptually separated the falling from the rising contours. This result suggested that the perception of intonation begins with the activation of universal auditory mechanisms that process the direction of relatively slow frequency modulationd A second experi...
Evidence for attractors in English intonation
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2006
Although the pitch of the human voice is continuously variable, some linguists contend that intonation in speech is restricted to a small, limited set of patterns. We test this claim by asking subjects to mimic a block of 100 randomly generated intonation contours and then to imitate themselves in several successive sessions. The produced f 0 contours gradually converge towards a limited set of distinct, previously recognized basic English intonation patterns. These patterns are 'attractors' in the space of possible intonation English contours.
2011
Intonation models describing F0 alignment and scaling in terms of peak and valley localization can face challenges when F0 contours are interrupted (e.g., during voiceless segments). It is often assumed that some form of perceptual completion or "filling in" of such intervals occurs that resolves these issues. This study uses the perceived scaling of High pitch accents both with and without missing peaks due to F0 gaps to adjudicate between three possible accounts of how speakers treat missing F0 in intonation perception. Results provide strong evidence against both extrapolation and interpolation across the missing region, supporting instead the hypothesis that listeners simply ignore these regions. This suggests that a non-turning-point-based model, such as TCoG, should be considered as an alternative to standard target-and-interpolation models.