Incrementally-build pitch contours and focus structure in Catalan

Incrementally-build pitch contours and focus
structure in Catalan
Sílvia Planas-Moralesa & Xavier Villalbab
a
Universitat Rovira i Virigili
b
Universitat. Autònoma de Barcelona
Silvia.Planas@urv.net
Xavier.Villalba@uab.es
1
HYPOTHESIS
We will defend the hypothesis that the pitch contour of sentences is build on
incrementally:
Information structure
Pitch contour
wide focus
L*+H on the verb
⇓
⇓
narrow focus
L*+H on the focused item
⇓
⇓
contrastive focus
L*+H on the focused item
+
increased pitch
This proposal will be shown to be empirically well-motivated from a
crosslinguistic point of view (Catalan and Spanish being considered), and to
offer support to Donati and Nespor’s (2003) hypothesis concerning the crucial
role of pitch contours as primary evidence for the acquisition of focus
structure.
2
METHOD: THE ANALYSIS
PitchWorks (Scicon)
Pitch Option
Pitch Extraction Method: Cepstral (windows length: 45ms; step size: 10ms).
Frequency deviation: 50Hz.
Tracking threshold: 1-2%.
Calculation range: 70Hz- 200/300Hz.
Display range: 50Hz-250/350Hz (with 100hz spacing).
05cat
L i v ae n v i a(r) una m a d a
words
l
e
n
a
l
A n(n) a
250
150
Hz
ms
350
700
1050
1400
1750
We use the spectrogram for a better mapping of the pitch peaks onto the
spoken utterance.
3
METHOD: PRODUCTION
Catalan corpus
1.
context: ‘What happened?’
wide focus: F[La Maria li va enviar una magdalena a l’Anna] ‘Maria sent a cake to Anna’
2.
context: Què va fer la Maria? ‘What did Maria do?’
wide focus: La Maria F[va enviar una magdalena a l’Anna] ‘Maria sent a cake to Anna’
3.
context: Què li va enviar a l’Anna? ‘What did she send to Anna?’
narrow focus short constituent: Li va enviar F[una magdalena] ‘She sent Anna a cake’
4.
context: Què li va enviar a l’Anna? ‘What did she send to Anna?’
narrow focus short constituent: Li va enviar F[una magdalena de crema anglesa] ‘She sent
Anna a cream cake’
5.
context: A qui li va enviar una magdalena? ‘Whom did she send a cake to?’
narrow focus short constituent: La Maria li va enviar una magdalena F[a l’Anna] ‘She sent a
cake to Anna’
6.
context: Li va enviar un pastís? ‘Did she send her a pie?’
contrastive focus: No. Li va enviar F[una magdalena] ‘No. She sent her a cake’
7.
context: Li va enviar la magdalena a l’Ignasi? ‘Did she send the cake to Ignasi?’
contrastive focus: No. L’hi va enviar F[a l’Anna] ‘No. She sent it to Anna’
8.
context: Li va enviar un pastís a l’Ignasi? ‘Did she send a pie to Ignasi?’
contrastive focus: No. Li va enviar F[una magdalena a l’Anna] ‘No. She sent a cake to Anna’
9.
context: Què va passar? ‘What happened?’
wide focus: F[Va arribar una magdalena] ‘There arrived a cake’
10.
context: Què va arribar? ‘What arrived?’
narrow focus short constituent: Va arribar F[una magdalena] ‘There arrived a cake’
11.
context: Què va arribar? ‘What arrived?’
narrow focus long constituent: Va arribar F[una magdalena de crema anglesa] ‘There arrived
a cream cake’
12.
context: Va arribar un pastís? ‘Did a pie arrive?’
contrastive focus: No. Va arribar F[una magdalena] ‘No. There arrived a cake’
Equivalent contexts and sentences for the Spanish corpus.
5 + 5 informants.
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RESULTS (1)
Informative wide focus (09cat) vs. informative narrow focus (10cat)
09cat
Què va passar?
words
v
a rr i
b a(r)un a m a d a l
e
n a
250
150
Hz
ms
350
700
1050
1400
1750
10cat
Què va arribar?
words
v
a rr
i b a(r) u n a m a d a l
e
n
a
250
150
Hz
ms
400
800
1200
1600
2000
Wide focus is associated with the typical lowering contour of declaratives (i.e.
L*+H on the verb plus a continued fall L* and L%), whereas narrow focus is
characterized by a significant pitch peak associated with the focused
constituent, but, crucially, not with the stressed syllable (i.e. L*+H), plus a
continued fall L* and L%.
5
RESULTS (2)
Short narrow focus (03cat) vs. long narrow focus (04cat)
03cat
Què li va enviar a l'Anna?
words
L i v ae n v ia(r)unam a d a l
e n a
250
150
Hz
ms
450
900
1350
1800
2250
04cat
L i v a e n v i a(r)una m a d a l e n a d e c r e m a n g l
words
e
s a
250
150
Hz
ms
400
800
1200
1600
2000
Again, narrow focus of a short constituent is characterized by a significant
pitch peak associated with the focused constituent, but, crucially, not with
the stressed syllable (i.e. L*+H), plus a continued fall L* and L%. In contrast,
when the focus constituent increases its size, in addition to the initial focus
peak, the basic focus tone L*+H is placed on the following stressed syllables,
with a decreasing F0 value, unless the last one, which receives the typical L*
tone of declaratives.
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RESULTS (3)
Contrast between informative narrow focus (10cas) and
contrastive focus (12cas)
10cas
¿Qué llegó?
words
Ll
e
g
ó un a m a d a l
e
n
a
250
150
Hz
ms
300
600
900
1200
1500
12cas
¿Llegó un pastel?
words
N o
#
Ll e g óu n a m a d a l e n a
250
150
Hz
ms
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
The pitch contour of contrastive focus is build on that of informative narrow
focus (i.e. L*+H), with a sharp F0 increase (around 35Hz).
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DISCUSSION
1) The initial hypothesis is confirmed that the more complex the informative
function of focus the more complex its pitch structure.
2) The basic tone of focus in Catalan and Spanish is L*+H.
3) The design of the sentences should take into account proper topic-focus
structure within a context.
4) This hypothesis opens the way for an “acquirer-friendly” theory of focus
mapping: the children is exposed to increasing phonetic complexity, in
agreement with recent proposals, like Donati & Nespor (2003).
FURTHER WORK (IN PROGRESS)
Interactive
controlled
method
for
data
elicitation:
a
Game-Based
Conversation Task (based on Schafer, Speer, and Warren, 2004):
directed spontaneous speech
perception test
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APPENDIX
The role of stress clash
A) [What did you buy?] He comprat F[un llibre]
(2) he comprat [un llibre]
'He
words
com 'p ra
t [ un 'll i
b r e
]
250
150
Hz
ms
400
800
1200
1600
2000
B) [What did you buy?] He comprat F[un llibre de matemàtiques]
(03) un llibre de matemàtiques
'He c om'pra t[un 'll i br e d e m a t e 'm a t i qu e
words
s ]
250
150
Hz
ms
550
1100
1650
2200
2750
In the A case a typical L*+H focus tone occurs at the beginning of the focus constituent,
plus a typical L* and L%. However, in the B case, the L*+H focus tone appears displaced
from the very beginning of the focus constituent, against our previous description. This
‘displacement’, however, is an epiphenomenon, for the expected pattern (L*+H at the
beginning of the focus constituent, plus an L*+H on the next stressed vowel) would result
in a stress clash.
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REFERENCES
D’Imperio, M. 2003. Tonal structure and pitch targets in Italian focus
constituents. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 2: 55-66.
Donati, C.; Nespor, M. 2003. From focus to syntax. Lingua 113: 1119-1142.
Schafer, A.; Speer, S.; Warren, P. 2004. Prosodic influences on the
production and comprehension of syntactic ambiguity in a game-based
conversation task. In: Trueswell, J.; Tanenhaus, M. eds. Approaches to
Studying World-Situated Language Use. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
209-225.
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