Prosodic Phonology-3-Prosodic Prominence (original) (raw)
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The Phonology and Phonetics of Prosodic Prominence in Persian
2014
"This dissertation explores the phonological representation and the phonetic realization of prosodic prominence in Persian. It comprises two related parts: the first part addresses prosodic phrasing in Persian sentences, while the second part deals with phonetic correlates of prosodic prominence by reporting conducted production and perception experiments. The phonological part is carried out within the framework of Prosodic Phonology, and aims at determining the prosodic structure of Persian from foot level, up to utterance level. By adopting Optimality Theory, it tries to explain how morphosyntax-phonology interface constraints together with prosodic markedness constraints form the prosodic structure of the language. It begins with foot level and suggests that in languages like Persian which have one non-iterative weight-insensitive edgemost stress per word, a single foot which is edge-aligned with the minimal Phonological Word best explains the prosodic pattern at word level. This part also focuses on prosodic differences between lexical words and weak function words (clitics) and shows that any attempt to describe the prosodic structure of Persian without addressing this crucial difference, will not be able to provide explanation for a wide range of phenomena. This study suggests that proclitics and enclitics behave asymmetrically in Persian: enclitics prosodize as affixal clitics, while proclitics are free clitics. Next, it addresses the problem of weak function words which are not a part of their preceding or following XPs, and demonstrates how the phonological well-formedness constraints determine the direction of cliticization in these XP-external function words. It also deals with the issue of clitic clusters in Persian which was not explored in the previous works. Another contribution of this study is reclassification of so-called exceptionally initial-stressed words. This dissertation also deals with the longstanding problem of Ezafe constructions and by reviewing previous proposals on the prosodic structure of these constructions, based on phonological evidence and phonetic observations suggests that each lexical word in an Ezafe construction maps onto a Phonological Phrase, and the Ezafe morpheme phrases with its preceding material to satisfy the phonological well-formedness constraint ONSET. The prosodic structure of XP-external clitics such as the Ezafe morpheme is explained by adopting a syntax-prosody interface constraint namely MAP-XP, that bans two sister XPs inside a single Phonological Phrase. This study proposes a ranking of OT constraints by which the prosodic structure of Ezafe constructions and other syntactic phrases such as DPs and VPs can be predicted and explained uniformly. It also proposes that the interaction between morphosyntax-phonology interface constraints and prosodic markedness constraints determine prosodic constituents of all levels and their heads, and other constraints require the heads of phonological phrases to be associated with audible accents. The rightmost Phonological Phrase in an Intonational Phrase is the head. This head associates with an accent which is perceived more prominently than the other accents. One further issue explored here is the fact that in lexicalized Ezafe constructions and also in the ones containing given/old information, some words may appear without audible accent. The phonetic difference between final and non-final accents is the subject of the second half of this dissertation. Previous research on Persian has shown that the main acoustic correlate of prosodic prominence is f0. This study reports production and perception experiment results conducted in order to answer the question whether final (nuclear) accents are perceived more prominently than the other ones only because they are not followed by any other accent, or because they are phonetically different from the non-final (pre-nuclear) accents. The results of production experiments reveal that nuclear accented syllables have a lower f0 range, but a longer duration in comparison with pre-nuclear accented ones. Other parameters such as overall intensity, spectral tilt and vowel quality do not differ significantly in the two types of accents. Perception experiments reveal that native listeners can indeed distinguish the two types of accents without having access to the portion of the utterance that follows the final accent. This proves that the two types of accents are phonetically different. Perception tests also show that the difference between the shapes of f0 curves in the two types of accents is the main acoustic parameter that helps the listeners distinguish them from each other. In pre-nuclear accented words, the f0 peak is at the right edge of the metrically strong syllable, and the curve has a rising slope at this point. In these syllables, the peak may even occur on the initial syllable of the following word. However, in the syllables associated with nuclear accents, the f0 peak is located inside the syllable, and the curve has a falling slope at the right edge of the syllable. If the f0 at the right edge of a nuclear accented syllable is manipulated and raised so that the f0 peak is moved to the right edge, the native listeners will perceive the word containing this syllable as a pre-nuclear accented word. This study also shows that duration alone cannot cue the difference between the two types of accents. However, when accompanied by f0 changes, it can help the listeners distinguish the two accents more easily and more efficiently. Downloadable at: http://roa.rutgers.edu/content/article/files/1314\_hosseini\_1.pdf "
This module presents the basics of intonational phonology. The discussion focuses on intonational phenomena in Indic languages , as these are different from English and other intonational languages (cf. Fery 2010).
Prosodic prominence is an umbrella term encompassing various related but conceptually and functionally different phenomena such as phonological stress, paralinguistic emphasis, lexical, syntactic, semantic or pragmatic salience, to mention a few. Due to the high interest prominence has received from various disciplines, it has been studied from multiple perspectives (functional, physical, cogni-tive). It also has been operationalised and annotated across different descriptive levels (syllable, word), based on different scales (categorical, multi-level, continuous), and measured across a large variety of signal domains (acoustic, articulatory, gestural). The present paper offers an overview of the various perspectives involved and defines a preliminary roadmap for a better and more unified understanding of this multi-faceted phenomenon.
India is a tableau of languages, cultures, faiths, even so-called races and one comes across striking richness of sound-systems in Indic languages. The present essay attempts to demonstrate that despite multiplicity and diversity of languages across various regions in the country, there is a strong element of commonality in the employment of phonological segments across Indic. There is rich material available on the ground for young researchers desirous of pursuing phonological investigations across Indic. The field is open to exploring segmental phonology, morpho-phonology, tonology, 'tone-Sandhi', stress assignment patterns, and other aspects of phonology.
2017
Author(s): Sandy, Clare Scoville | Advisor(s): Garrett, Andrew; Inkelas, Sharon | Abstract: This study focuses on word-level prosodic prominence in Karuk (kyh), a Hokan isolate of Northern California. Prosodic prominence in Karuk is made up of sparse tone and stress, and there are two main influences on its placement: the alignment of high tone and certain syllable structures, and the use of prosodic prominence to mark stem edges. These influences are at times in conflict, with the resolution depending on criteria specific to particular sets of morphology. The study is based on analysis of a corpus combining recent fieldwork and historical data. Specific findings include: 1) the placement of prominence in a Karuk word is largely dependent on CV-skeleton syllable structure and far more predictable than previ- ously thought; 2) while one tone-syllable alignment is the unmarked output of constraints, a different tone-syllable alignment on the input blocks its surfacing; 3) various sets...
Phonological Features of Indic Languages
This module takes a close look at some of the main phonological features of linguistic groups among Indic languages. The focus here is on the different aspects of word phonology from a typological point of view. Section 2 begins with giving details about the language groups. Section 3 presents the main aspects of the description of word phonology. Sections 4, 5 and 6 present the main features of the patterns of consonants, vowels, and prosodic phenomena, respectively.
On the Prosodic Expression of Pragmatic Prominence: The Case of Pitch Register Lowering in Akan
Language and Speech, 2012
This article presents data from three production experiments investigating the prosodic means of encoding information structure in Akan, a tone language that belongs to the Kwa branch of the Niger-Congo family, spoken in Ghana. Information structure was elicited via context questions that put target words either in wide, informational, or corrective focus, or in one of the experiments also in pre-focal or post-focal position rendering it as given. The prosodic parameters F0 and duration were measured on the target words. Duration is not consistently affected by information structure, but contrary to the prediction that High (H) and Low (L) tones are raised in ex situ (fronted) focus constructions we found a significantly lower realization of both H and L tones under corrective focus in ex situ and in situ focus constructions. Givenness does not seem to be marked prosodically. The data suggest that pragmatic prominence is expressed prosodically by means of a deviation from an unmarked prosodic structure. Results are thus contradicting the view of the effort code that predicts a positive correlation of more effort resulting in higher F0 targets.
How prominence and prosodic phrasing interact
2016
Prosodically left-headed languages like Hungarian show the tendency to locate relevant prosodic events at the start of prosodic phrases. In a production study we tested the strength of this principle by examining whether it is pertained even if a deviating prosodic structure is suggested by the stimulus setting. We measured duration and pitch-related features in front of prominent and non-prominent words in non phrase-initial position according to the stimulus suggestion. We found not only significantly higher prominence but also preceding boundary signals for the prominent words indicating that Hungarian speakers adjust prosodic phrasing to prominence requirements within an utterance in order to pertain leftheadedness.
A Cross-language Corpus for Studying the Phonetics and Phonology of Prominence
2014
The present article describes a corpus which was collected for the cross-language comparison of prominence. In the data analysis, the acoustic-phonetic properties of words spoken with two different levels of accentuation (de-accented and nuclear accented in non-contrastive narrow-focus) are examined in question-answer elicited sentences and iterative imitations (on the syllable da) produced by Bulgarian, Russian, French, German and Norwegian speakers (3 male and 3 female per language). Normalized parameter values allow a comparison of the properties employed in differentiating the two levels of accentuation. Across the five languages there are systematic differences in the degree to which duration, f0, intensity and spectral vowel definition change with changing prominence under different focus conditions. The link with phonological differences between the languages is discussed.