Intonation and Information Discourse and Dialogue CS359 October 16, 2001

Beyond Contrast Specific information conveyed by intonation –New information = H* –Contrastive Information= L+H* General, compositional analysis of intonation –Pitch accent –Phrase accent –Boundary tone

Questions What sorts of information, extractable by current text analysis, are useful in accent/tune assignment? Can contrastive pronouns be unstressed? Why is relatively little known about H+L* accent? Synthesis is interesting, but are there systems that make use of pitch accent, phrasing, etc for recognition? What can they handle? How good are they?

Questions How do you evaluate synthesis systems? Speech recognition in general? The Bill/He contrasts could be recognized, but there’s nothing in the text or context to signal this. What sort of simple annotation is available to signal these facets? How universal/variable are these tune meanings?

Intonation & Information Intonational structure –Different domains of interpretation –Different information impact Indicates: –What speaker believes in mutually believed –What speaker wants to make mutually believed –How units are grouped for interpretation

Terminology Mutual belief: –I believe, You believe, I believe you believe, You believe I believe, I believe you believe I believe, etc……. “Predicated”: –Add THIS to your set of beliefs..

Pitch Accent Meaning: H* All pitch accents indicate salience Different accents –Different mutual belief, different predication H*: New information to be added to beliefs –With: L-L%, “neutral declarative” –With: H-H%, “high-rise”, inform+confirm –With: H-L%: elaboration –Establish information as mutually believed

Pitch Accent Meaning: L* Salient, but not new predicated information –With H-H%, yes-no question; confirmation –With L-H%, SHOULD be mutually believed –Cue phrases: “Now”,”Anyway” L*: discourse structure, topic change H*/complex: Usual semantic meaning

Pitch Accent Meaning: L+H Salience of scale: Link to other salient items L*+H: Uncertainty –Esp. with respect to scale –Greater pitch range -> Incredulity –“Lack of predication with respect to scale L+H*:Salience of scale+new information –Contrastive

Pitch Accent Meaning: H+L New information+link by inference to MB H*+L: –Pedagogical: Link new to old, instructions –Calling

Phrase Accent Meaning H or L over intermediate phrase –Presence or absence of boundary H: No boundary, exhaustive list L: Boundary, not exhaustive

Boundary Tone Meaning Spans entire phrase/utterance Discourse segmentation –H%: “continuation-rise” Interpret WITH subsequent utterance Internal to discourse segment –L%: Separate interpretation Likely END discourse segment

Tone, Tune, and Information Pitch accents: Salience and information status –H*: New, predicated info –L*: Salience, nothing to add to beliefs Phrase accent, boundary tone: –H-,H%: Continuation, forward linkage –L-,L%: Separation, no linkage