Intonation and Meaning Doctorat en Ciència Cognitiva i Llenguatge Pilar Prieto, ICREA-UAB

References Gussenhoven, C. (2004). The Phonology of Tone and Intonation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, ch. 4 and 5. Gussenhoven, C. (2002). “Intonation and Interpretation: Phonetics and Phonology,” in Proceedings of the Speech Prosody 2002 Conference, pp , 2002.

Intonation and Meaning Languages have tonal grammars Speakers of all languages also use the phonetic implementation to signal paralinguistic meanings ‘Grammatical’ intonational meaning will often mirror those form-function relations, and such phonology-morphology relations may be arbitrary ‘Phonetic’ paralinguistic meaning draws on universally understood metaphors of biologically determined form-function relations

Discreteness in tonal patterns Experimental approaches towards establishing discreteness in intonation (Gussenhoven 2004) The imitation task (Pierrehumbert & Steele 1989) The pitch-range task (Gussenhoven & Rietveld 2000) The semantic task and categorical perception tasks ((Ladd and Morton 1997, Kohler 1987)

Intonation makes the difference A: What types of foods are a good source of vitamins? B1: Legumes are a good source of vitamins. B2: Legumes are a good source of vitamins. A: I’d like to fly to Davenport, Iowa on TWA. B: TWA doesn’t fly there... B1: They fly to Des Moines. B2: They fly to Des Moines. A1: I met Mary and Elena’s mother at the mall yesterday. A2: I met Mary and Elena’s mother at the mall yesterday.

Rise right at start of stressed syllable cues statement of fact. they fly to Des Moines [TWA doesn’t fly there...]

Alignment with syllable matters Rise which is delayed somewhat cues suggestion, or uncertainty about whether the statement qualifies as relevant. they fly to Des Moines [TWA doesn’t fly there...]

The imitation task Pierrehumbert & Steele (1989) undertook an imitation task with the two intonation patterns of the utterance Only a millionaire illustrated below.

Pierrehumbert & Steele (1989) synthesized many intonation contours with varying degrees of peak delay, and asked speakers to imitate what they heard. Peak delay of speakers’ responses patterned in two categories: early (‘assertion’) and late (‘suggestion’).

The results of the experiment revealed the existance of two separate phonological categories See also later experiments by Ward & Hirschberg 1985, Hirschberg & Ward 1992, among others, which confirmed a clear separation between the two).

Gradient effects of tonal range Free Gradient Hypothesis: variation in pitch range only reflects the speakers’ implication in speech act Liberman & Pierrehumbert (1984) Gradient or categorical effects?

Liberman & Pierrehumbert 1984

Free Gradient Hypothesis Free Gradient Hypothesis: variation in pitch range only reflects the speakers’ implication in speech act

Interrogative sentences and the locality/range problem Suspension of declination in questions in Hausa (Lindau 1986, Leben 1990). Cf. also Catalan. Higher F0 peaks in interrogatives in Spanish (Navarro Tomás 1944; Canellada & Madsen 1987; Sosa 1992, 1999), Danish and Swedish (Hadding & Kennedy 1972) and Bengali (Hayes & Lahiri). *Not in French and English (Mettas 1971). Are these differences phonological?

Catalan interrogatives

Spanish interrogatives Fo contour of the utterance ¿Le dieron el número de vuelo? (Sosa 1992)

The pitch-range task (Gussenhoven & Rietveld 2000) Difference between the high rise and the low rise in Dutch (the accented syllables is mid vs low respectively). In the experiment, listeners heard two sets of 9 accent stimuli: 9 versions of the low rise by combining 3 values from the beginning and end 9 versions of the high rise by combining 3 values from the beginning and end

%L H* H% 1 Gussenhoven & Rietveld 2000

2

Perceived surprise scores High rise set: Perceived surprise is higher with higher values

Low rise set: Perceived surprise is higher with lower values

Explanation The high rise and the low rise are discretely different contours. Perceived surprise is a function of pitch range Pitch range is perceived in terms of the distance between realizations of L and H HLHL

If the high rise and the low rise were different realizations of the same phonological contour, differing only in pitch range, listeners would have treated any itch range variation in either contour type in the same manner.

Perception of pitch range not like this … but like this:

%L H* H%

2 %L L*H H%

Semantic Tasks Categorical Perception Tasks This task relies on the perception of semantic differences between phonetically different forms. Categorical perception: listeners interpret the phonetic continuum as belonging to two phonological categories and do not perceive differences between stimuly belonging to the same category. Problem: in intonation speakers tend to associate phonetically different forms with different meanings (Ladd & Morton 1997).

Categorical Perception Paradigm Two separate (and complementary) tests are required to establish categorical perception. Identification task, in which listeners are asked to assign randomly presented stimuli from the continuum to either of two categories (results should show an abrupt perceptual shift at a given point) Discrimination task, in which listeners hear pairs of stimuli that differ by one acoustic step on the continuum, and are asked to say whether the members of each pair are the same of different. The results of this experiment should reveal that discrimination is good at the point where listener’s perception shifts from one category to the other.

The aLARM went off A: “This was an everyday occurrence” B: “This was an unusual experience” Ladd & Morton 1997

Late peak Early peak

Listeners are more likely to choose the “unexpected” interpretation as the F0 peak was higher. “Although the shift in interpretation is clearly brought about by the increased F0 peak, it could be due to a gradient form-function relationship (higher peaks signalling greater significance; Gussenhoven 2004:66)”.

Substitute pitch height Late f0 peaks can substitute for high f0 peaks tim e Hz Raised and delayed

Mamma ballava da Lalla H*+LH*+L L i Mamma ballava da Lalla ? H*+LL*+H L i ‘Mum used to dance at Lalla’s’ Neapolitan Italian (D’Imperio 1999)

With in broad focus Mamma ballava da Lalla H*+L!H*+L L i Mamma ballava da Lalla ? H*+LL*+H L i ‘Mum used to dance at Lalla’s’

Narrow focus statementYes-no question Vedrai mamma domani ‘You will see your mum tomorrow’‘Will you see your mum tomorrow?’

(D’Imperio et House, 1997; D’Imperio, 2000) original stylized L H question statement 40 ms L H D’Imperio (2002) A 40. ms. difference in peak alignment statistically increased question responses in perception experiments (D’Imperio 2000) CONCLUSION: A small alignment H difference is crucial for identification. A small temporal difference is crucial for identification.

F0 (Hz) L1 H L Time Alignment: A. Linear stylisation F0 (Hz) Shift (msec) Vocalic offset A2A2A1A1A3A3A4A4 L 2 H L1 Alignment: B. Temporal shift Methods

Pragmatic contrast: Pragmatic contrast: (D’Imperio, 2000) In Neapolitan Italian, later synchronization of F0 peaks differentiates questions from statements coupled with raising the F0 range and slower descent. ces in tonal alignment are employed by listeners to distinguish narrow focus statements and yes/no questions (D’Imperio, 2000, 2001, 2002; D’Imperio&House, 1997)

Universality of Intonational Meaning A discussion of intonational meaning typically raises the issue of whether such meaning is universal or language-specific. The position defended here is that both the universal and the language-specific perspectives are true, simultaneously, for any language, but that the universal part is exercised in the phonetic implementation, while the language-specific meaning is located in the intonational morphology.

Ladd 1981 Universalist Hypothesis: biologically determined pattern of rising questions and falling statements Language-specific Hypothesis: grammatically determined, arbitrary relationship between form and function

View defended by Gussenhoven Universal meaning is omnipresent There is a statistical bias towards ‘natural’ phonological interpretations There are degrees of ‘naturalness’ in phonological interpretations ‘Unnatural’ representations may arise in many ways through language change

Biological codes Gussenhoven suggests that the intonation of any language involves universal and language-specific components. The Frequency Code: variation in larynx size is associated with frequency, height of pitch. The Effort Code: variation in effort is associated with the excursion size of pitch movements The Production Code: high initial pitch with beginnings and final low pitch with endings of speech events.

Knowledge of vocal sound production Size: Frequency Code Energy: (a) degree: Effort Code (b) phasing: Production (Phase) Code

and EC Wide excursion – More effort Small excursion – Less effort FC High – Small Low- Big PC High beginning – start of production Low beginning – continuation of production Low ending – end of production high ending – continuation of production Three biological codes

Many meanings are derived from these codes, by social agreement. Some influence of the native language (Aoju Chen’s studies) The three codes are accidental : the speech production mechanism originally arose for different reasons (exaptation). Grammaticalization of these codes

Two meaning classes Affective meanings: refer to the speaker Informational meaning: refer to the message Affective vs. informational interpretations of the biological codes

Frequency Code Smaller larynxes contain lighter and smaller vocal cords, with which faster vibration rates are achieved for a given amount of energy. The correlation between larynx size and rate of vocal cord vibration is exploited for the expression of power relations. The many ramifications of this latter connection were dealt with by Ohala. The term for this form- function relation is his, and my labels for the next two relations are by analogy with his term.

Meanings of the Frequency Code High ~ Low, Affective: Vulnerable - protective Submissive - Authoritative High ~ Low, Informational: Uncertain - Certain

Grammaticalizations of the Frequency Code High ~ Low, Informational: Uncertain - Certain Grammaticalization: Statement - Question

Ohala proposes a biological basis for the correlation between high pitch and questions: smaller larynxes produce higher pitch and smaller creatures are often less powerful than larger creatures, high pitch can be used to signal submissiveness or a willingness to cooperate. This, in turn, explains the use of high pitch in questions: questions require cooperation from other speakers may reflect cross-linguistic differences in grammatical

Two substitute forms Late peaks to suggest high peaks High register to suggest wide excursion

Substitute pitch height Late f0 peaks can substitute for high f0 peaks Hz Raised and delayed

Substitute pitch span High pitch can suggest wide pitch span (register for span) wide narrow substitute for wide

Influence of the native language Different choices in the case of conflicting meanings

Influence of the native language Hadding & Studdert-Kennedy 1964 Gussenhoven & Chen 2000 Chen, Rietveld & Gussenhoven 1999

Hadding & Studdert-Kennendy Phonetica Reprinted in Bolinger’s Intonation: A Book of Readings For Jane/För Jane S H three values

“Is this a question or a statement?” American English and Swedish listeners

1) Interrupted lines (stimulus with higher peaks) => higher peaks lead to more question responses; 2) higher endpoints too.

English Swedish H S % Question F 0 of end pitch

H S % Question English Swedish

Explanation Swedish listeners are more sensitive to peak height differences than English listeners… because Swedish has no final rise to express interrogativity, while English does

Gussenhoven & Chen 2000 Universal cues of interrogativity peak height, end pitch, peak alignment

“These are sentences from a language spoken on a South Sea island. Which of the two utterances is the question?” Dutch, Hungarian and Chinese listeners Stimuli presented paired with standard stimulus

Inputs.

Chen, Rietveld & Gussenhoven 1999 H*L L% L*H H% Female bilingual Du-Eng speaker Confident – Not confident

Explanation For some difference in Hz, Dutch listeners get more meaning out of the Frequency Code than BrE listeners This is because Dutch has a narrower pitch range

Meanings of the Effort Code Wide ~ Narrow, Affective: Excited - Dull Surprised - Unimpressed Helpful - Not helpful Wide ~ Narrow, Informational: Significant - Not significant

Meaning of the Production Code,Informational Beginning of utterance, High ~ Low: New topic - continuation End of utterance, High ~ Low: Continuation - End of turn

Effort Code: Emphatic – non-emphatic Chen, Gussenhoven & Rietveld 2000

Register H*L L%, L*H H%

Explanation Dutch: Substitute use of register for pitch span to express emphasis (Effort Code) English: Use of register to express friendliness (Frequency Code) So don’t perceive Dutch listeners friendliness in higher registers?

Testing the Production Code: English and Dutch

The D is in section 3, the F is in section 5, the K is in section 7 DF K

Initiality The D is in section Hz

Finality... is in section 3 with five source utterances Hz

“Do you think this sentence fragment is from the first, second or third sentence in the passage?”