Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:41:10.291Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pitch scaling and the internal structuring of the Intonation Phrase in French*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2014

Mariapaola D'Imperio  and
Amandine Michelas
Mariapaola D'Imperio*
Affiliation:
Aix Marseille University, CNRS, 13604 Aix-en-Provence and Institut Universitaire de France (IUF)
Amandine Michelas*
Affiliation:
Aix Marseille University and CNRS, 13604 Aix-en-Provence
*
E-mail: mariapaola.dimperio@lpl-aix.fr
michelas@lpl-aix.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Within the autosegmental-metrical approach to French intonation, the existence of an intermediate phrase or ip is controversial. Our study provides strong evidence for its existence, by uncovering systematic pitch-scaling effects within this constituent. We first show that the presence of an ip break is responsible for blocking recursive downstep of subsequent AP-final LH* rises in declarative utterances, causing the return of the final H target to the pitch level set by the first accentual peak of the phrase (i.e. complete reset). Additional evidence for the internal structuring of the Intonation Phrase is also provided by partial reset on the postboundary H target as well as by preboundary lengthening on the last syllable of the ip. The pitch-scaling effects are claimed to result from control over the reference pitch level for the entire ip, which can alternatively be modelled through secondary association of the last pitch accent of the domain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Phonology , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , May 2014 , pp. 95 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This work was made possible by a doctoral fellowship from the French Ministry of Education and Research to Amandine Michelas and by support from the Institut Universitaire de France to Mariapaola D'Imperio. This work was also carried out within the Labex Brain and Language Research Institute (ANR-11-LABX-0036) and has benefited from support from the French National Agency of Research (ANR), under the project title ‘Investments of the Future’ A*MIDEX (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02). We would also like to thank three anonymous reviewers and the editors of this journal for providing insightful suggestions and comments, which helped to greatly improve the quality of the paper.

References

REFERENCES

Astésano, Corine (2001). Rythme et accentuation en français: invariance et variabilité stylistique. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Audibert, Nicolas, Aubergé, Véronique & Rilliard, Albert (2010). Prosodic correlates of acted vs. spontaneous discrimination of expressive speech: a pilot study. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. Available (January 2014) at http://speechprosody2010.illinois.edu/papers/100097.pdf.Google Scholar
Baayen, R. H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data: a practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barthkova, Katarina (1991). Speaking rate modelization in French application to speech synthesis. In Proceedings of the 12th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences. Vol. 3. Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence. 482–485.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas M. & Maechler, Martin (2010). Package ‘lme4’ (Version 0.999375-34): linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes. http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/lme4/lme4.pdf.Google Scholar
Beckman, Mary E. & Edwards, Jan (1990). Lengthenings and shortenings and the nature of prosodic constituency. In Kingston, John & Beckman, Mary E. (eds.) Papers in laboratory phonology I: between the grammar and physics of speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 152–178.Google Scholar
Beckman, Mary E. & Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (1986). Intonational structure in Japanese and English. Phonology Yearbook 3. 255–309.Google Scholar
Berg, Rob van den, Gussenhoven, Carlos & Rietveld, Toni (1992). Downstep in Dutch: implications for a model. In Docherty, Gerard J. & Ladd, D. Robert (eds.) Papers in laboratory phonology II: gesture, segment, prosody. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 335–359.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David (2009). Praat: doing phonetics by computer (version 5.1.34). http://www.praat.org.Google Scholar
Crystal, Thomas H. & House, Arthur S. (1990). Articulatory rate and the duration of syllables and stress groups in connected speech. JASA 88. 101–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dell, François (1984). L'accentuation dans les phrases en français. In Dell, François, Hirst, Daniel & Vergnaud, Jean-Roger (eds.) Forme sonore du langage. Paris: Hermann. 65–122.Google Scholar
D'Imperio, Mariapaola & Michelas, Amandine (2010). Embedded register levels and prosodic phrasing in French. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. Available (January 2014) at http://speechprosody2010.illinois.edu/papers/100879.pdf.Google Scholar
Féry, Caroline & Truckenbrodt, Hubert (2005). Sisterhood and tonal scaling. Studia Linguistica 59. 223–243.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fougeron, Cécile & Jun, Sun-Ah (1998). Rate effects on French intonation: prosodic organization and phonetic realization. JPh 26. 45–69.Google Scholar
Goldman, Jean-Philippe (2011). EasyAlign: an automatic phonetic alignment tool under Praat. Proceedings of Interspeech 2011. 3233–3236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschberg, Julia & Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (1986). The intonational structuring of discourse. In Proceedings of the 24th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Columbia University. Association for Computational Linguistics. 136–144.Google Scholar
Jun, Sun-Ah & Cécile Fougeron (2000). A phonological model of French intonation. In Botinis, Antonis (ed.) Intonation: analysis, modelling and technology. Boston: Kluwer. 209–242.Google Scholar
Jun, Sun-Ah & Cécile Fougeron (2002). Realizations of accentual phrase in French intonation. Probus 14. 147–172.Google Scholar
Keller, Eric & Zellner, Brigitte (1995). A statistical timing model for French. In Elenius, Kjell & Branderud, Peter (eds.) Proceedings of the 13th International Congress of the Phonetic Sciences. Vol. 4. Stockholm: KTH & Stockholm University. 302–305.Google Scholar
Klatt, Dennis H. (1975). Vowel lengthening is syntactically determined in a connected discourse. JPh 3. 129–140.Google Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert (1988). Declination ‘reset’ and the hierarchical organization of utterances. JASA 84. 530–544.Google Scholar
Ladd, D. Robert (2008). Intonational phonology. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Laniran, Yetunde & Clements, G. N. (2003). Downstep and high raising: interacting factors in Yoruba tone production. JPh 31. 203–250.Google Scholar
Lehiste, Ilse (1973). Phonetic disambiguation of syntactic ambiguity. Glossa 7. 107–122.Google Scholar
Liberman, Mark & Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (1984). Intonational invariance under changes in pitch range and length. In Aronoff, Mark & Oehrle, Richard T. (eds.) Language sound structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 157–233.Google Scholar
Michelas, Amandine (2011). Caractérisation phonétique et phonologique du syntagme intermédiaire en français: de la production à la perception. PhD dissertation, Aix Marseille University.Google Scholar
Michelas, Amandine & D'Imperio, Mariapaola (2012). When syntax meets prosody: tonal and duration variability in French Accentual Phrases. JPh 40. 816–829.Google Scholar
O'Shaughnessy, Douglas & Allen, Jonathan (1983). Linguistic modality effects on fundamental frequency in speech. JASA 74. 1155–1171.Google Scholar
Ouden, Hanny den, Noordman, Leo & Terken, Jacques (2009). Prosodic realizations of global and local structure and rhetorical relations in read aloud news reports. Speech Communication 51. 116–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. (1980). The phonetics and phonology of English intonation. PhD dissertation, MIT.Google Scholar
Pierrehumbert, Janet B. & Beckman, Mary E. (1988). Japanese tone structure. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pinheiro, José C. & Bates, Douglas M. (2000). Mixed-effects models in S and S-PLUS. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Post, Brechtje (2000). Tonal and phrasal structures in French intonation. The Hague: Holland Academic Graphics.Google Scholar
Prieto, Pilar, Shih, Chilin & Nibert, Holly (1996). Pitch downtrend in Spanish. JPh 24. 445–473.Google Scholar
Quené, Hugo & van den Bergh, Huub (2004). On multi-level modeling of data from repeated measures designs: a tutorial. Speech Communication 43. 103–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
R Development Core Team (2008). R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available athttp://www.r-project.org.Google Scholar
Reubold, Ulrich, Harrington, Jonathan & Kleber, Felicitas (2010). Vocal aging effects on F 0 and the first formant: a longitudinal analysis in adult speakers. Speech Communication 52. 638–651.Google Scholar
Swerts, Marc (1997). Prosodic features at discourse boundaries of different strength. JASA 101. 514–521.Google Scholar
Truckenbrodt, Hubert (2002). Upstep and embedded register levels. Phonology 19. 77–120.Google Scholar
Truckenbrodt, Hubert (2007). Upstep on edge tones and on nuclear accents. In Gussenhoven, Carlos & Riad, Tomas (eds.) Tones and tunes. Vol. 2: Experimental studies in word and sentence prosody. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 349–386.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaissière, Jacqueline (1983). Language-independent prosodic features. In Cutler, Anne & Ladd, D. Robert (ed.) Prosody: models and measurements. Berlin: Springer. 53–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welby, Pauline (2003). The slaying of Lady Mondegreen, being a study of French tonal association and alignment and their role in speech segmentation. PhD dissertation, Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Welby, Pauline (2006). French intonational structure: evidence from tonal alignment. JPh 34. 343–371.Google Scholar
Welby, Pauline & Lœvenbruck, Hélène (2006). Anchored down in Anchorage: syllable structure, rate, and segmental anchoring in French. Italian Journal of Linguistics 18. 73–124.Google Scholar
Wightman, Colin W., Shattuck-Hufnagel, Stefanie, Ostendorf, Mari & Price, Patti J. (1992). Segmental durations in the vicinity of prosodic phrase boundaries. JASA 91. 1707–1717.Google Scholar