TOBI, continued
January 24, 2017
The Master Plan1. Any questions about the DSP assignment?
2. Any questions about the course project?
3. Today--some lecture notes on:
• Multiple pitch accents within a phrase
• “Downstepping”
4. Finally:
• Work on the transcription of some new TOBI exercise files.
• http://www.uofclinguistics.org/441/TOBIlab2.html
TOBI, so far• English has pitch accents, which align with stressed
syllables in an utterance.
• We’ve seen two pitch accents:
1. H* : peak in F0
2. L* : trough in F0
• English also has boundary tones, which align with the ends of intonational phrases.
• There are also two of these:
1. H%
2. L%
• Boundary tones are not associated with a particular syllable.
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
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?
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
There Can Be More Than One• Important: there can be more than one pitch accent within an intonational phrase.
• Check out the peach file.
H* L* H* L%
Downstepping• Successive H* accents tend to drift downward in F0 within an intonational phrase.
• = downdrift, or downstepping
• This provides further evidence for phrasal organization.
• Note: this is an optional process.
• 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