Thematic Role Predictability and
Planning affect Word Duration
Sandra Zerkle, Elise Rosa, and Jennifer Arnold
U n i ve rs i t y o f N o r t h C a ro l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l
E TA P - 3 : E x p e r i m e n ta l a n d T h e o re t i c a l A d va n c e s i n P ro s o d y
U n i ve rs i t y o f I l l i n o i s , U r b a n a - C h a m p a i g n , M ay 2 8 - 3 0 , 2 0 1 5
Reference Form Varies
• Speakers choose between lexically reduced forms of reference (pronouns) and
explicit names
• John went skiing with Matt.
Then he fell down.
Then Matt fell down.
Then John fell down.
• Pronunciation ranges from acoustically reduced to prominent
Then John fell down.
Then JOHN fell down.
Then J..o…h..n… fell down.
...
Predictability has strong effects on
acoustic reduction
• Lexical Predictability
• Speakers produce certain words with shorter durations/greater phonological reduction when
they are predictable
• Probabilistic Reduction Hypothesis: word frequency, statistical probability, context, sentence
structure, discourse and semantic factors (Bell et al., 1999; Jurafsky et al., 1998, 2001), Lexical-AccessBased Model (Bell et al., 2009, 2003), Likelihood of co-occurrence in context (Lieberman, 1963),
Frequency of syntactic structure (Gahl & Garnsey, 2004)
• Referential Predictability
• Speakers are more likely to re-mention certain entities/referents than others, making those
references predictable or expected
• Accessibility – likely to be re-mentioned:
• Grammatical role (Arnold, 1998), probability in context (Watson, Arnold, & Tannenhaus, 2007), repetition
(Lam & Watson, 2010), givenness (Fowler & Housum, 1987)
• Thematic Role?
Semantic Bias: Thematic Role
GOAL CONTINUATIONS
Sir Barnes got a picnic basket from Lady Mannerly. Sir Barnes…
GOAL
source
SOURCE CONTINUATIONS
The chef handed a cookbook to the maid. The chef…
SOURCE
goal
Kehler et al., 2008; Rosa, 2015
Need to Control for Grammatical Role
GOAL CONTINUATIONS
Lady Mannerly gave a picnic basket to Sir Barnes. Sir Barnes…
source
GOAL
SOURCE CONTINUATIONS
The maid took a cookbook from the chef. The chef…
goal
SOURCE
Kehler et al., 2008; Rosa, 2015
Study Goals
• Does Thematic Role Predictability affect Acoustic Reduction?
• What is the role of Planning?
• How are Acoustic Reduction and Planning related?
Planning Effects
• How might Thematic Role affect Planning Time?
• One way to examine planning: Latency
• Hypothesis: Goals are related to easier planning
Planning Effects
• Predictions:
• Pre-plan: If planning utterance is easy, all planning happens before utterance begins
• If only pre-planning, expect no relationship between latency and duration
• Incremental: If planning utterance is more difficult, speakers can pre-plan some but
must begin speaking while still planning the rest of their utterance incrementally
• Has consequences for both pre-planning AND incremental planning, expect latency and
duration to be correlated
• Share the Load: Ease Planning (Christodoulou, 2012)
Methods
• Experiment 1: Rosa 2015 PhD dissertation
• Experiment 2: Zerkle 2015 First Year Project
• Stimuli available at: jaapstimuli.web.unc.edu
Experiment 1
Lady Mannerly
gave a picnic
basket to Sir
Barnes.
Lady Mannerly
handed the picnic
basket to Sir Barnes.
Example
trial:
And then he
threw it away.
Experiment 2
Lady Mannerly
gave a picnic
basket to Sir
Barnes.
Sir Barnes received
the picnic basket
from Lady Mannerly.
And then he
threw it away.
Methods
• Experiment 1:
• Only viewed pictures on computer screen
• Viewed both pictures for each trial for the entire duration of the trial
• Prediction: increases the degree of pre-planning the utterance
• Will this have effects on latency and/or duration?
• Experiment 2:
• Detective enacted on interactive magnet boards
• Added audience design factor, made the conversation more engaging
• Delayed the point when participants could begin planning the utterance, because they were
only shown the second picture after the detective described the first picture
• Prediction: increases the degree of incremental planning during the utterance
• Will this have effects on latency and/or duration?
Analysis
• Limited responses:
• Used a (correct) name description for reference (e.g., Sir Barnes)
• Referred to the nonsubject character of the previous sentence (only Experiment 1)
• N = 21 (Experiment 1), N = 24 (Experiment 2)
• Dependent Measures:
• Log of Target Duration = Acoustic Reduction
• Log Latency to fluent speech = Planning Time
• Likelihood ratings: included as predictors
• 20 participants indicated which of the two characters was more likely to be
mentioned for each item
• Goal continuations significantly more likely than source continuations (p=0.0015)
• Average rating for each item was used as a predictor
Study Goals
• Does Thematic Role Predictability affect acoustic reduction?
• What is the role of planning?
• How are Acoustic Reduction and Planning related?
Duration Results
GOAL: “Lady Mannerly gave a picnic
basket to Sir Barnes. Sir Barnes…”
SOURCE: “The maid took a cookbook
from the chef. The chef…”
• Are predictable referents (based on Thematic Role) reduced (in terms of duration)?
Experiment 1: no significant difference
between Goals and Sources
Experiment 2: no significant difference
between Goals and Sources
Duration Results
GOAL: “Lady Mannerly gave a picnic
basket to Sir Barnes. Sir Barnes…”
SOURCE: “The maid took a cookbook
from the chef. The chef…”
• Target Likelihood: Goal continuations rated significantly more likely than source continuations (p=0.0015)
• Exp2 Goal by Likelihood interaction (p=0.002): Goal durations are shorter than sources when they are more likely
Study Goals
• Does Thematic Role Predictability affect acoustic reduction?
• What is the role of planning?
• How are Acoustic Reduction and Planning related?
GOAL: “Lady Mannerly gave a picnic
basket to Sir Barnes. Sir Barnes…”
SOURCE: “The maid took a cookbook
from the chef. The chef…”
Latency Results
• Thematic role affects latency itself
Experiment 1: Goal continuations initiated
faster than source continuations (p=0.01)
Experiment 2: Goal continuations initiated
faster than source continuations (p=0.001)
• Latencies are significantly longer overall in Experiment 2 (p=0.0001)
Study Goals
• Does Thematic Role Predictability affect acoustic reduction?
• What is the role of planning?
• How are Acoustic Reduction and Planning related?
Latency Results
GOAL: “Lady Mannerly gave a picnic
basket to Sir Barnes. Sir Barnes…”
SOURCE: “The maid took a cookbook
from the chef. The chef…”
• Latency affects duration: shorter latency, shorter duration
Exp1: Target durations were shorter on
Exp2: Target durations were shorter on
no latencies
significant
effect of Thematic Role
in either
experiment
trials withBut
shorter
(p=0.009)
trials with
shorter latencies
(p=0.005)
Planning time mediates the effect of thematic role
predictability
1. Speakers initiate utterances more quickly for goals in both experiments
2. Latency predicts duration in both experiments
3. No direct effect of thematic role on duration
◦
Except Goal x Target Likelihood interaction in Experiment 2
Thematic
Role
Latency
Duration
Planning Across the Experiments
• Experiment 1 – more pre-planning
• Speakers saw both pictures for entire trial
• But no direct effect of thematic role on duration, because even sources can be planned out
• Experiment 2 – more incremental planning
!
• Speakers only saw second picture when it was their turn to speak, which lead to more communicative
pressure to hold the floor
• Thematic role predictability effects on duration might only appear when the
speaker has to begin speaking quickly but not everything is planned out yet
(Exp2), so speakers have to share the load more. Goals will have shorter
latency and duration, and sources will have longer latency and duration.
• When the speaker has enough time to plan utterance (Exp1), we only see
differences in latency (not duration).
Conclusions
• Thematic Role Predictability affects Ease of Planning
• Thematic Role predicts Latency
• Ease of Planning affects Duration
• Strong effects of Latency on Duration
• Thematic Role x Likelihood effect in Experiment 2
• Stronger effects of predictability when incrementally planning (Experiment 2)
•  Referential predictability effects on Duration are mediated by Planning
Thanks!
Dr. Jennifer Arnold
Dr. Elise Rosa
Kathryn Weatherford
Arnoldlab RAs:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Megan Fullerton
Bryan Smith
Leela Rao
Natasha Vasquez
Taylor Beard
Anita Simha
Grant Huffman
Michaela Neeley