Phonetic Realization of Focus with no On-Focus Pitch Range Expansion in Turkish (original) (raw)
Related papers
Phonetic realization of focus in Persian
2012
The present study investigates how focus is phonetically realized in declarative and interrogative sentences in Persian. Focus is usually interpreted as contrastive focus in this language. That is, the contrasted element is chosen out of a closed set of entities and bears heavy stress. In this study, 12 native speakers of Persian recorded short declarative and interrogative sentences including Clitic Group and Phonological Word in neutral and focal conditions. The results show small acoustic differences in duration, intensity and spectral information between initial and final accented target words in neutral and focus conditions in Persian, by the side of substantial differences in f0.
The phonetic realization of narrow focus in English L1 and L2. Data from production and perception.
2014
The typological differences between English and Italian are reflected in the strategies adopted to mark sentence-level prominence. While English mark focus by modulating prosodic parameters (namely, pitch, duration and intensity), Italian normally recurs to word order strategies, benefitting from the freer word order admitted by its syntax. This study is aimed to investigate the acquisition of the prosodic marking of narrow non-contrastive focus by Italian speakers of English L2. This study was mainly aimed at: (a) determining and comparing the prosodic cues used by English native speakers and Italian speakers of English L2 when marking narrow focus; (b) verifying if the Italian speakers are able to acquire the English prosodic strategies in focus marking as a function of their competence in English, progressively avoiding the focus marking strategies that characterize their L1 in favor of more native-like solutions; (c) investigating the phenomenon not only at the production level, but also from the point of view of perception. Consequently, this work is composed by a production and a perception study. The production study consisted in the acoustic analysis of native and non-native productions. The speech data were collected using a semi-spontaneous method, where speakers recorded a set of short sentences as replies to wh-questions, with the aim of eliciting sentences presenting narrow focus on subject or on verb. Three groups of speakers were recorded: English native speakers NS), Italian native speakers with a higher competence in English L2 (NNS1), and Italian native speakers with a lower competence in English L2 (NNS2). A similar set of Italian L1 sentences was also elicited from the Italian speakers. The acoustical analysis was performed at sentence and word level, and it was mainly based on the measurement of fundamental frequency and duration. The results confirmed that English native speakers mark narrow focus mainly by modulating pitch. NNS1 showed a progress towards the target model, by implementing an active use of pitch, although not perfectly matching with the native one. Finally, NNS2 were not able to mark focus with the use of prosodic parameters. The analysis of the Italian L1 data set suggested that in Italian narrow non-contrastive focus is not marked prosodically. Not even duration, which in Italian is the prosodic cue normally used to mark prominence at word level seems to play a role in signaling prominence at sentence level. The perception study was designed to verify whether the differences shown by the acoustical measurements could also have an impact on the listeners' perception. Two perception tests were designed, based on a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm, where listeners were asked to identify narrow focus by guessing the wh-question that had triggered each sentence. Experiment 1 presented natural sentences to two groups of listeners: 22 British native speakers and 22 Italian native listeners. The Italian native listeners were also presented with an extra set of stimuli, consisting of the Italian L1 data set. The results of Experiment 1 showed that English native listeners could correctly identify narrow focus even without extra contextual information. This happened for NS and NNS1, whereas the listeners could not recognize focus in the productions by NNS2. The Italian listeners could also detect focus well above chance level in the productions by NS. However, they failed to identify focus in the productions by NNS1 and NNS2. As for the Italian L1 data set, the Italian listeners failed to distinguish narrow focus, providing perceptual evidence to the hypothesis that Italians do not mark narrow focus by prosody. Experiment 2 was designed to investigate the effect of the differences in pitch modulation on the correct detection of narrow focus by English native listeners. In this case, the productions of the speakers were acoustically manipulated. The participants were 20 British English native speakers. In general, the results of Experiment 2 confirmed that pitch plays an important role in the recognition of narrow focus also from the perceptual point of view. This is particularly true for NS productions, while the listeners could not successfully identify focus in the modified non-native productions. The results of the production study and the perception study converged in showing that in English pitch plays an important role in the production and perception of narrow non-contrastive focus. As for non-native productions, NNS1 could approach the native model to a certain extent by modulating pitch. From the perceptual point of view, their productions were effective enough to be successfully understood by English native listeners. In contrast, NNS2 had not managed to adopt the strategies of English, showing a poor prosodic characterization of the constituent in focus. As a consequence, the listeners could not identify focus in the NNS2 productions. These findings are particularly interesting not only for research in L2 phonetics, but also for their implications for language instruction, where prosody has only recently started to be studied and taught with renewed interest and momentum.
An exploration of voice source correlates of focus
Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, 2010
This pilot study explores how the voice source parameters vary in focally accented syllables. It examines the dynamics of the voice source parameters in an all-voiced short declarative utterance in which the focus placement was varied. The voice source parameters F0, EE, UP, OQ, RG, RA, RK and RD were obtained through inverse filtering and subsequent parameterisation using the LF-model. The results suggest that the focally accented syllables are marked not only by increased F0 but also by boosted EE, RG and UP. The non-focal realisations show reduced values for the above parameters along with a tendency towards higher OQ values, suggesting a more lax mode of phonation.
The Perception of Prosodic Focus in Persian
"In a previous production experiment, post-focus compression (PFC) of F0 and intensity were found to be present in Persian. It was also shown that F0 and duration were the main correlates of prosodic focus in Persian. However, the perceptual relevance of PFC in Persian was not yet clear. The present paper reports the findings of an experiment on focus perception in Persian. Native speakers of Persian listened to sentences produced with focus in different positions as well as the neutral-focus sentence, and judged the presence and location of focus. Results show that final focus is identified much less well than other types of focus, and most of its confusion is with neutral focus. This shows that the presence of PFC is a main factor in recognizing prosodic focus in Persian."
Phonetic Realization of Prosodic Focus in Persian
phon.ucl.ac.uk
It has been repeatedly observed that focus substantially changes the sentence prosody in many languages not only by increasing F 0 , duration, and intensity on the focused components but also by compressing the pitch range and intensity of post-focus elements. However, it is not yet fully clear in Persian what the main effect of focus is on pre-focus, on-focus and post-focus elements. To achieve this goal, we have embarked on a full-scale investigation of the phonetic realization of prosodic focus in Persian. The findings of this study reveal that focus dramatically changes the three regions. F 0 and duration has significantly increased in on-focus words without any significant change in intensity. Compared to their counterparts, pre-focus elements show weaker intensity but no change in duration and mean F 0 . Finally post-focus words show significant lowering of F 0 and decrease of intensity. The duration of post-focus words remains intact. Thus, according to the present data, it can be concluded that Persian, like English and Mandarin, falls into the category of PFC (postfocus compression) languages.
Prosodic Focus in Malay without Post-focus Compression
Focus When a speaker utters a sentence, certain information in the sentence is emphasised more than the others, and this linguistic phenomenon is generally known as focus. Under a certain discourse condition, some parts of a sentence might as well get highlighted (Bolinger, 1958; Eady & Cooper, 1986; Ladd, 2008; Xu, 1999). Such a phenomenon can be manifested ABSTRACT Many studies across languages have recognised that focus substantially alters the prosodic structure of a sentence not only by increasing F0, intensity, and duration of the focused words but also by compressing the range of pitch and intensity of the post-focus words. Studies, however, are still not fully clear regarding the main effects of focus on focused and post-focused words in Malay. Analyses from the present study revealed that on-focused words had significantly increased F0, intensity, and duration, while post-focused words showed no significant lowering following the effect of focus. The outcomes of the study g...
Speech Communication, 2006
Greek. An experiment was devised which systematically manipulated the position of the focused word in the question (and therefore of the intonation nucleus) and the position of the last stressed syllable. Our results showed that all questions had a low level stretch associated with the focused word and a final rise-fall movement, the peak of which aligned in two different ways depending on the position of the nucleus: when the nucleus was on the final word, the peak of the rise fall co-occurred with the utterance-final vowel, irrespective of whether this vowel was stressed or not; when the nucleus was on an earlier word, the peak co-occurred with the stressed vowel of the last word. In addition, our results showed finely-tuned adjustments of tonal alignment and scaling that depended on the extent to which tones were ''crowded'' by surrounding tones in the various conditions we set up. These results can best be explained within a model of intonational phonology in which a tune consists of a string of sparse tones and their association to specific elements of the segmental string.
Phonetic realization of focus in English declarative intonation
Journal of Phonetics, 2005
The present study investigates how focus is phonetically realized in declarative sentences in American English. The goal is to test the hypotheses that, (a) focus is manifested in parallel rather than in alternation with other intonational functions, and (b) every syllable in a sentence is associated with a local pitch target. Eight native speakers of American English recorded short declarative sentences with narrow focus at different locations or without any narrow focus. Detailed f 0 analyses reveal that a narrow focus is realized by expanding the pitch range of the on-focus stressed syllables, suppressing the pitch range of postfocus syllables, and leaving the pitch range of prefocus syllables largely intact. Focus is not found, however, to determine the presence or absence of f 0 peaks. Data analyses also reveal evidence for the presence of a local pitch target in every syllable. These findings are incompatible with conventional theories of English intonation. As an alternative, the Parallel Encoding and Target Approximation (PENTA) model is considered. The model defines and organizes the intonational components in terms of function rather than form. It also assumes target approximation rather than interpolation as the basic articulatory mechanism of f 0 contour generation. It is argued that the approach used in the PENTA model, which takes account of both communicative functions and articulatory implementation, may provide a coherent account of detailed f 0 contours in English. r
WPP, No. 105: The Intonation of Focus in Farsi
2007
Author(s): Scarborough, Rebecca | Abstract: This paper examines the intonational correlates of focus in Farsi. Data are presented from two native Farsi speakers illustrating focus (contrastive focus, in particular) in several different types of constructions. Descriptively, focus is characterized by a pitch accent with an extra high F0 followed by deaccenting and dephrasing to the end of the intonational phrase. Some possible phonological analyses of this pattern in the data are considered. They are further evaluated with respect to several other non-focus constructions that are phonetically similar to focus (i.e., which also involve deaccenting and dephrasing). Finally, a unified phonological analysis of focus and other deaccenting phenomena is suggested.
Tracing the Phonetic Space of Prosodic Focus Marking
Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence
Focus is known to be expressed by a wide range of phonetic cues but only a few studies have explicitly compared different phonetic variables within the same experiment. Therefore, we presented results from an analysis of 19 phonetic variables conducted on a data set of the German language that comprises the opposition of unaccented (background) vs. accented (in focus), as well as different focus types with the nuclear accent on the same syllable (broad, narrow, and contrastive focus). The phonetic variables are measures of the acoustic and articulographic signals of a target syllable. Overall, our results provide the highest number of reliable effects and largest effect sizes for accentuation (unaccented vs. accented), while the differentiation of focus types with accented target syllables (broad, narrow, and contrastive focus) are more subtle. The most important phonetic variables across all conditions are measures of the fundamental frequency. The articulatory variables and their ...