Intonation

January 21, 2014

The Plan for Today• There’s a DSP exercise for you to work on!

• Due next Thursday.

• Also: I have posted a couple of readings on TOBI (an intonation transcription system) to the course website.

• Let’s get into it by reminding ourselves a little bit about how F0 can be meaningfully manipulated in language.

• Does anybody remember what the following things are?

1. Lexical tones

2. Pitch accents

3. Stress

Intonation• Languages superimpose pitch contours on top of word-based stress or tone distinctions.

• This is called intonation.

• It turns out that English:

• has word-based stress

• and phrase-based pitch accents (intonation)

• The pitch accents are pragmatically specified, rather than lexically specified.

• = they change according to discourse context.

English Intonation• We’ll analyze English intonation with a framework called TOBI

• Tones and Break Indices

• Note: intonational patterns vary across dialects

• The patterns and examples presented today might not match up with your own intonational system

• Also: this framework has only been applied to a few (primarily western) languages

• There’s more info at

• http://www.ling.ohio-state.edu/~tobi/

• Course in Phonetics, pp. 124-128

Levels of Prominence• In English, pitch accents align with stressed syllables.

• Example: “exploitation”

vowel X X X X

full vowel X X X

stress X X

pitch accent X

• Normally, the accent falls on the last stressed syllable.

• (This is called the nuclear accent.)

Pitch Accent Types• In English, pitch accents can be either high or low

• H* or L*

• Examples: High (H*) Low (L*)

Yes. Yes?

H* L*

Magnification. Magnification?

• As with tones in tone languages, “high” and “low” pitch accents are defined relative to a speaker’s pitch range.

• My pitch range: H* = 155 Hz L* = 100 Hz

• Mary Beckman: H* = 260 Hz L* = 130 Hz

Whole Utterances• The same pitch pattern can apply to an entire sentence:

H*

H*: Manny came with Anna.

L*

L*: Manny came with Anna?

H*

H*: Marianna made the marmalade.

L*

L*: Marianna made the marmalade?

Information• Note that there’s a tendency to accent new information in the discourse.

• 4 different patterns for 4 different contexts:

H*

H*: Manny came with Anna.

H*

H*: Manny came with Anna.

L*

L*: Manny came with Anna?

L*

L*: Manny came with Anna?

Pitch Tracking• H* is usually associated with a peak in F0;

• L* is usually associated with a valley (trough) in F0

• Pitch tracking can help with the identification of pitch peaks and valleys.

• Note: it’s easier to analyze utterances with lots of sonorants.

• Check out both productions of “Manny came with Anna” in Praat.

• Note that there is more to the intonation contour than just pitch peaks and valleys

• The H* is followed by a falling pitch pattern

• The L* is followed by a rising pitch pattern

Tone Types• There are actually three types of tones at play, but

we’ll start with just two:

1. Pitch Accents

• associated with a stressed syllable

• may be either High (H) or Low (L)

• marked with a *

2. Boundary Tones

• appear at the end of a phrase

• not associated with a particular syllable

• may be either High (H) or Low (L)

• marked with a %

Tone Transcription

L* H%

Phrases• Intonation organizes utterances into phrases

• “chunks”

• Boundary tones mark the end of intonational phrases

• Intonational phrases are the largest phrases

• In the transcription of intonation, phrase boundaries are marked with Break Indices

• Hence, TOBI: Tones and Break Indices

• Break Indices are denoted by numbers

• 1 = break between words

• 4 = break between intonational phrases

Break Index Transcription

Tones: L* H%

Breaks: 1 1 1 4

Question Formation• Note that not all questions end in L* H%.

• What’s the intonational difference between these two?

Did you see Bob?

L*H%

Where did you go?

H* L%

• The upsloping intonation only applies to yes/no questions.

• Also note: “Uptalk”

• = application of L* H% pattern to declarative sentences.

0 Level Boundaries• 0 level boundaries are marked wherever there is clear coarticulation across a word boundary

• Also for flaps across word boundaries, as in “got it”

0 1 1 4

More Tones• Note that there can be more than one pitch accent within an intonational phrase.

• Examples:

Anna gave Manny a mango.

L* H* L%

Anna gave Manny a mango.

H* H* H* L%

• The last accent in a phrase is somehow more prominent than the others.

• This accent is called the nuclear accent.

Downstepping• Successive H* accents tend to drift downward in F0 within an intonational phrase.

• = downdrift, or downstepping

• This provides further evidence for phrasal organization.

• Downstepping essentially reduces the pitch range.

• Downstepped H* accents are denoted with a !H*

• Anna gave Manny a mango.

H* !H* !H* L%

• There’s a lovely, yellowish, old one.

H* !H* !H* L%

Downstepping Pitch Track

H* !H* !H* L%

=271 Hz =238 Hz =200 Hz

Intermediate Phrases• A downstepping pattern can be reset by the presence of an intermediate phrase boundary.

• Example:

It’s lovely, and yellowish, and it’s an old one.

H* !H* L- H* L-L%

• Intermediate phrase boundaries are marked with a break index of 3.

• At the end of each intermediate phrase is an phrase accent

• Either Low (L-) or High (H-)

Intermediate Phrase Transcription

H* !H* L- H* L-L%

1 1 1 3 1 1 0 1 4

One Phrase vs. Two Phrases• No intermediate phrase boundary:

“I” means insert.

H* H*L-L%

1 1 4

• An intermediate phrase boundary, with a L- phrase accent:

“I” means insert.

H* L- H*L-L%

3 1 4

One Phrase vs. Two Phrases• No intermediate phrase boundary:

Marianna made the marmalade.

L* L* H-H%

1 1 1 4

• An intermediate phrase boundary, with a H- phrase accent:

Marianna made the marmalade.

L* H- L* H-H%

3 1 1 4

Filling the Gap• Another feature of phrase accents is that they fill in the gap between the nuclear accent and the boundary of the intermediate phrase.

L* + H L- H%

1 0 1 1 4

Combinations• Different combinations of phrase accents and boundary

tones have different connotations.

1. L-L% Declarative sentences

2. H-H% Yes/No questions (usually)

3. L-H% Continuations

4. H-L% A “plateau” pattern

• Upstep: boundary tones after H- are higher than normal.

Upstepping

• H-H%

• H-L%

“My name is Marianna.”

A Chunking Reviewutterance

intonational phrase (intonational phrase) ...

intermediate phrase (intermediate phrase) ...

(pitch accent) nuclear accent

(stressed syllable) stressed syllable

Break Indices• 4 marks boundaries between intonational phrases

• associated with a boundary tone (H% or L%)

• sense of complete disjuncture

• 3 marks boundaries between intermediate phrases

• associated with a phrase accent (H- or L-)

• lesser sense of disjuncture

• 1 marks boundaries between words

• 0 marks non-boundaries between words

• (2 marks uncertainties or apparent mismatches)

• rarely used

Bitonal Pitch Accents• In addition to H* and L*, there are two bitonal pitch accents

• L + H*

• L* + H

• The starred element denotes the tone which is associated with the stressed syllable

• L + H* = high peak on stressed syllable, preceded by a sharp rise in pitch

• L* + H = low pitch target on stressed syllable, followed by a sharp rise in pitch

H* vs. L + H*• Marianna won it.

H*

L + H*

L* vs. L* + H• Only a millionaire.

• Marianna made the marmalade.

H* L* + H L- H%

L* L* H-H%

L + H* vs. L* + H• There’s a lovely one in Bloomingdale’s.

L* + H

L + H*

More Downstepping• Bitonal pitch accents can also undergo downstepping.

L + H* L + !H* L + !H* L-L%

1 1 1 1 1 4

Pitch-Accents Round-up• There are four pitch accents:

• H*

• L*

• L + H*

• L* + H

• They attach to stressed syllables

• The final pitch accent in an intonational phrase is the nuclear accent.

• Generally perceived as more prominent.

Practice Time!• Marianna made the marmalade.

Practice Time• That’s a cat. (H* vs. L*)

• Noodle

• Eileen?

• Stalin.

• Five versions of Amelia.

Deep Thought Questions• What might happen if:

• The shortest period checked is longer than the fundamental period?

• AND two fundamental periods fit inside a window?

• Potential Problem #1: Pitch Halving

• The pitch tracker thinks the fundamental period is twice as long as it is in reality.

• It estimates F0 to be half of its actual value

Pitch Halving

pitch is halvedCheck out normal file in Praat.

More Deep Thoughts• What might happen if:

• The shortest period checked is less than half of the fundamental period?

• AND the second half of the fundamental cycle is very similar to the first?

• Potential Problem #2: Pitch doubling

• The pitch tracker thinks the fundamental period is half as long as it actually is.

• It estimates the F0 to be twice as high as it is in reality.

Pitch Doubling

pitch is doubled

Microperturbations• Another problem:

• Speech waveforms are partly shaped by the type of segment being produced.

• Pitch tracking can become erratic at the juncture of two segments.

• In particular:

• voiced to voiceless segments

• sonorants to obstruents

• These discontinuities in F0 are known as microperturbations.

• Also: transitions between modal and creaky voicing tend to be problematic.

Back to Language• F0 is important because it can be used by languages to signal differences in meaning.

• Note:

• Acoustic = Fundamental Frequency

• Perceptual = Pitch

• Linguistic = Tone

A Typology• F0 is generally used in three different ways in language:

1. Tone languages (Chinese, Navajo, Igbo)

• Lexically determined tone on every syllable

• “Syllable-based” tone languages

2. Accentual languages (Japanese, Swedish)

• The location of an accent in a particular word is lexically marked.

• “Word-based” tone languages

3. Stress languages (English, Russian)

• It’s complicated.

Mandarin Tone

ma1: mother

ma2: hemp

ma3: horse

ma4: to scold

• Mandarin (Chinese) is a classic example of a tone language.

How to Transcribe Tone• Tones are defined by the pattern they make through a speaker’s frequency range.

• The frequency range is usually assumed to encompass five levels (1-5).

• (although this can vary, depending on the language)

1

2

3

4

5Highest F0

Lowest F0

• In Mandarin, tones span a frequency range of 1-5

• Each tone is denoted by its (numerical) path through the frequency range

• Each syllable can also be labeled with a tone number (e.g., ma1, ma2, ma3, ma4)

Tone

1

2

3

4

How to Transcribe Tone• Tone is relative

• i.e., not absolute

• Each speaker has a unique frequency range. For example:

1

2

3

4

5Highest F0

Lowest F0

Female

Male

100 Hz

200 Hz 350 Hz

150 Hz

General Relativity• In ordinary conversation, for European languages (Fant, 1956) :

• Men have an average F0 of 120 Hz

• A range of 50-250 Hz

• Women have an average F0 of 220 Hz

• A range of 120-480 Hz

• Children have an average F0 of 330 Hz

• In a normal utterance, the F0 range is usually one octave.

• i.e., highest F0 = 2 * lowest F0

Relativity, in Reality• The same tones may be denoted by completely different frequencies, depending on the speaker.

• Tone is an abstract linguistic unit.

female speaker

male speaker

ma, tone 1 (55)

Accent Languages• In accent languages, there is only one pitch accent associated with each word.

• The pitch accent is realized on only one syllable in the word.

• The other syllables in the word can have no accent.

• Accent is lexically determined, so there can be minimal pairs.

• Japanese is a pitch accent language…

• for some, but not all, words

• for some, but not all, dialects

Japanese• Japanese words have one High accent

• it attaches to one “mora” in the word

• A mora = a vowel, or a consonant following a vowel, within a syllable.

• For example:

• [ni] ‘two’ has one mora.

• [san] ‘three’ has two morae.

• The first mora, if not accented, has a Low F0.

• Morae following the accent have Low F0.

It’s actually slightly more complicated than this; for more info, see: http://sp.cis.iwate-u.ac.jp/sp/lesson/j/doc/accent.html

Japanese Examples• asa ‘morning’ H-L

•asa ‘hemp’ L-H

• “chopsticks” H-L-L

• “bridge” L-H-L

• “edge” L-H-H

Stress Languages• Stress is a suprasegmental property that applies to whole syllables.

• It is defined by more than just differences in F0.

• Stressed syllables are higher in pitch (usually)

• Stressed syllables are longer (usually)

• Stressed syllables are louder (usually)

• Stressed syllables reflect more phonetic effort.

• More aspiration, less coarticulation in stressed syllables.

• Vowels often reduce to schwa in unstressed syllables.

• The combination of these factors give stressed syllables more prominence than unstressed syllables.

Stress: Pitch

(N)

(V)

Complicating factor: pitch tends to drift downwards at the end of utterances