The contribution of alignment,
duration and scaling to the
perception of contrastive focus in
Catalan, Italian and Spanish
M.M. Vanrell1, A. Stella2, B. Gili-Fivela3 i P.
Prieto4
UPF-UAB1, Università del Salento-CRIL23, ICREA-UPF4
Tone and Intonation in Europe (TIE4)
Road Map
Introduction
Goals
Methodology and results in production
Alignment
Duration
Tonal scaling
Methodology and results in perception
Gating
Identification
Conclusions
Introduction I
There seems to be a crosslinguistic
tendency to express narrow
contrastive focus (CF) through the use
of retracted and higher pitch peaks
(Estebas-Vilaplana 2000 for Central
Catalan; Beckman et al. 2002 for
Spanish; Smiljanic 2004 for Serbian
and Croatian; Manolescu et al. 2009
for Romanian).
Introduction II
Effort Code’s prediction (Gussenhoven
2002):
• “Increases in the effort expended on speech
production will lead to greater articulatory
precision, but also a wider excursion of the pitch
movement. […] A frequent interpretation is that the
speaker is being forceful because he believes the
contents of his message are important, an
informational meaning”.
• “Peak delay can therefore be used as an
enhancement of, or even a substitute for, pitch
raising”.
Introduction III
In Catalan (Prieto et al. 2005) and in
Castilian Spanish (De-la-Mota 1995; Nibert
2000; Face 2001; Hualde 2002, 2003),
broad focus (BF) accents have late peaks
(L+>H*) while narrow contrastive focus (CF)
accents have earlier f0 peaks (L+H*).
Introduction IV
According to De-la-Mota (1995, 1997) and
Face and Prieto (2007), a post-focal pitch
reduction or a higher f0 peak height can be
found in CF utterances.
Introduction V
A similar contrast is found in the varieties of
Italian spoken in Pisa (Gili-Fivela, 2002,
2005, 2006, 2008) and Lecce (Stella and
Gili-Fivela, 2009): as for Lecce Italian, pitch
accents found in BF sentence initial
position, both prenuclear and nuclear, have
late peaks (L+H*), while accents found in
CF have earlier f0 peaks (H*+L).
Introduction VI
Moreover, in Pisa Italian the nuclear
BF accent is higher in f0 (against the
prediction of the Effort Code) and
duration is greater for syllables
bearing the CF accent (Gili-Fivela
2005, 2006).
Goals
Since Romance languages show variation in their use of
pitch alignment, pitch range increase, and longer vowel
duration in distinguishing between BF and CF (Face 2002
and De-la-Mota 1995 and 1997 for Spanish; Frota 2010
for European Portuguese; Manolescu et al. 2009 for
Romanian; Marotta 1985 among others for Italian):
• Goal 1, to find out the specific contribution of tonal
alignment, duration and tonal scaling to the expression
of CF in CAT, IT and SP.
• How can the Effort Code (informational interpretation) be
inferred?
• Goal 2, to contribute to the understanding of the
principles and variation of Romance intonation.
Methodology: production
Goal: to compare the production of BF and
CF in CAT, IT and SP.
Participants: 5 native speakers of Majorcan
Catalan, 5 for Leccese Italian and 5 for
Madrid Spanish.
Context: visually presented and elicited by
means of question-answer pairs.
Targets: 5 sentences x 2 focus types x 2
stress positions x 3 repetitions x 5 speakers=
300 sentences per language.
Methodology: production
(material)
BF
CF
CAT
Què t’han dit? Que na
Marina vendrà demà.
Na Tina? No, na
MARINA vendrà demà.
IT
Cosa ti hanno detto?
Che la Melania verrà
domani.
La Tina verrá domani?
No, la MELANIA verrà
domani.
SP
Qué te han dicho? Que Tina? No, MARINA
Marina vendrá mañana. vendrá mañana.
Methodology: production
(measurements)
H distance to the end of the accented
syllable
H height
Duration of accented syllable
Results: production (H distance
to the end acc. syll.)
CAT
IT
SP
BF
CF
Effect of focus type on H distance to the end acc. syll:
p< .001
p<.01
(General Linear Model, univariant)
p<.01
Results: production
(duration)
CAT
IT
SP
BF
CF
Effect of focus type on duration of the acc. syll:
p> .05
p<.01
(General Linear Model, univariant)
p>.05
Results: production (H
height)
CAT
IT
SP
BF
CF
Effect of focus type on H height:
p> .05
p<.05
(General Linear Model, univariant)
p>.05
Results: production
(summary)
H distance to the end acc. syll.: statistically significant
in the 3 languages (more retracted peaks in CF).
Duration of the acc. syll.: statistically significant only
for IT (longer syllables in CF). There is a tendency in CAT
and SP to express CF by means of longer syllables.
H height: constant only for IT (lower H in CF), variability
between speakers in CAT and SP (tendency to higher H).
• IT goes against the prediction of the Effort Code
confirming previous findings for Pisa Italian (Gili-Fivela
2005, 2006)rising-falling accent is perceptually
salient.
• The complexity of the tonal movement prevents any increase
in the height of the peak.
Methodology: perception
Goals:
• To find out the specific contribution of each
parameter in perception,
• To test whether there is a direct correlation
between production and perception.
Participants: 20 native speakers of Majorcan
Catalan, 20 for Leccese Italian and 20 for Madrid
Spanish.
Tasks: gating and identification task (taking RT
measurements) by means of E-prime
(Psychology Software Tools Inc., 2009).
Tokens:
• Gating (2 sentences x 4 conditions x 6/7 gates
x 5 blocks= 240/280 tokens).
• Identification (7 steps x 4 conditions x 5
blocks= 140 tokens).
Methodology: perception
(gating)
CAT
Na Ma-
IT
La Me-
SP
Ma
“Normal” or
“correction”
declarative?
La Mela(1/2)
Na Mari(3/4)
Na Mari(final)
Na
Marina
(1/2)
Na
Marina
(final)
Na
Marina
vendrà
demà
La Mela(3/4)
La Mela(final)
La
Melania
(1/2)
La
Melania
(final)
La
Melania
verrá
domani
Mari(3/4)
Mari(final)
Marina
(1/2)
Marina
(final)
Marina
vendrá
mañana
BF
/ CF
alignment
duration
scaling
BF
/ CF
alignment
duration
scaling
BF / CF
alignment
duration
scaling
BF / CF
alignment
duration
scaling
Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2010)
Results: gating (ALI and
ALI+DUR)
CAT
IT
SP
ALI
BF
CF
p<.05
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
ALI+DUR
p<.01
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
(Effect of the manipulated parameter on the subject responses, General Lineal Model-univariant)
Results: gating (ALI+SCA
and ALI+SCA+DUR)
CAT
IT
SP
ALI+SCA
BF
CF
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
ALI+SCA+DUR
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
(Effect of the manipulated parameter on the subject responses, General Lineal Model-univariant)
Methodology: perception
(identification)
CF
BF
alignment
duration
scaling
CF
BF
alignment
duration
scaling
CF
BF
alignment
duration
scaling
CF
BF
alignment
duration
scaling
IT
“Normal” or
“correction”
declarative?
Praat (Boersma and Weenink 2010)
IT
CAT/SP
CAT/SP
Results: Identification and
RT
ALI
ALI+DUR
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
ALI+SCA
ALI+DUR+SCA
CAT
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
p<.001
(General Lineal Model, univariant)
IT
SP
Results: Identification (slope
values-logistic regression)
CAT
IT
SP
ALI
0.445
0.4
0.570
ALI+DUR
0.320
0.364
0.394
ALI+SCA
0.237
0.557
0.439
ALI+DUR+
SCA
0.208
0.460
0.373
Results: Identification and RT
(boundary values and RT peak)
CAT
IT
SP
ALI
2,67 / 2
3,86 / 4
1,61 / 4
ALI+DUR
3,24 / 3-5
4,06 / 3-6*
3,51 / 3-6
ALI+ALT
3,86 / 3-5
4,18 / 3-7
3,47 / 3-7
ALI+DUR+
ALT
4,20 / 4*
4,02 / 3-5
4,22 / 3-5
Results: perception
(summary)
Gating: no need for the post-focal region to distinguish the
two focus types
•Italian listeners can recognize the focus type earlier (1/2 way
through the syllable) than Catalan and Spanish listeners
•While alignment seems to be a robust cue in production, it is the
integration of the three cues what allows listeners to recognize
the focus type even at the second gate.
Identification: it is only with the combination of the three
prosodic features that we obtain clear S-shaped curves.
•Preferences? CAT: ALI+DUR+SCA; IT: ALI+DUR; SP:
ALI+DUR+SCA.
The results of production are highly correlated in perception
(importance of Italian CF).
Conclusions
The three languages use alignment, duration and
scaling to distinguish between CF and BF:
Retracted peaks and longer syllables for CF accents
in the 3 languages,
Higher peaks for CAT and SP CF accents but
complex rising-falling accents as a substitute for a
“salience” marker in IT (Effort Code).
For a full understanding of how CF works in different
languages, it is necessary to determine the perceptual
role of the different cues involved in production.
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Acknowledgments
A preliminar version of this work was presented at the Workshop
sobre entonació del català i Cat_ToBI in Barcelona, we are grateful
to the audience of these talk for their helpful comments and
discussion.
All the subjects who participated unselfishly in the experiments as
listeners and speakers deserve a special mention.
This research has been funded by projects FFI2009-07648/FILO and
CONSOLIDER-INGENIO 2010 CSD2007-00012 (awarded by the
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación) and by a short research stay of the
Subprograma de Ayudas FPI.