Prosodic Marking of Focus Domains German German Categorial or - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Focus Marking in German

Kordula De Kuthy HS Neuere Arbeiten zur Fokusprojektion WS 09/10 February 2, 2010

1 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Prosodic Marking of Focus Domains

Categorial or Gradient

(1)

• a. Q: Who did you call?
• b. A: [I called]background [MAry]F

(2)

• a. Q: Did you call John?
• b. A: No, [I called]background [MAry]F

(3)

• a. Q: What happened?
• b. A: [I called MAry]F

◮ The differences between answers in (1b), (2b), and (3b)

are discrete:

◮ it is either MAry or I called Mary which is in focus and ◮ MAry is either contrasted with another specific person,

• r is singled out from a larger set.

◮ Are these differences marked prosodically, and ◮ does the prosodic marking involve

◮ discrete means, i.e. phonological categories such as

pitch accent type, or

◮ gradient means, such as duration, or F0 timing and

scaling differences (which do not lead to a difference in phonological categories.

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Prosodic marking of broad vs narrow focus in German

◮ F´

ery (1993) looked for categorial distinctions in the prosodic marking of broad versus narrow focus in German.

◮ The result of an production experiment revealed that

speakers used the same nuclear pitch accent type (H*L) in both broad and narrow focus as in (4) and (5). (4) a. Q: Was ist los?

• b. A: [ANna ist weggelaufen.]F

(5) a. Q: Wer ist weggelaufen?

• b. A: [ANna]F [ist weggelaufen.]background

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Production experiment

Baumann et al. (2006) design a production experiment to investigate whether

◮ prosodic means are used in German to differentiate

between three sizes of focus domains involving focus projection and

◮ between these and narrow focus and ◮ between narrow focus and contrastive focus

Questions:

• 1. Was gibt’s Neues? What’s new?
• 2. Was gibt’s Neues von Manuela? What about Manuela?
• 3. Was will Manuela? What does Manuela want?
• 4. Was will Manuela malen? What does Manuela want to

paint?

• 5. Manuela will Gesichter malen? Manuela wants to paint

faces? Answers: Manuela will Blumen malen.

• 1. [

] focus

broad 2.

[ ] focus

3.

[ ] focus

4.

[ ] focus

narrow

• 5. Nein, [ ] focus

contrastive lit.: Manuela wants flowers paint

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Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Labeling of the resulting data

Figure 1: Example F0 contours for broad and narrow focus (answers 1 and 4, speaker CB)

L+ H* !H*

broad focus narrow focus

H* L+ H*

5 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Results and discussion

Categorial means

◮ Contrary to predictions in the literature, both the size of

the focus domain and type of focus affect the choice of accent type on the focus exponent:

◮ In broad focus structures a downstepped nuclear accent

was produces in 42% of all cases.

◮ in narrower focus domains fewer downsteps occurred. ◮ in contrastively focused utterances no downstep was

produced at all.

20 40 60 80 100 nuclear pitch accent type (%) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type downstep no downstep

Figure 2: Differences in nuclear pitch accent type in relation to sentence type, all speakers (N=120)

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Gradient means

As the focus domains narrows in the examples, the use of different gradient means was observed:

◮ increased duration of the focus exponent ◮ higher peak on the nuclear accent (marking the focus

exponent)

◮ greater pitch excursion to the peak of the nuclear accent ◮ delay in the nuclear accent peak

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Increased duration

◮ Across all speakers, duration of the focus exponent

varied consistently with the size of the focus domain.

◮ But it did not distinguish between contrast and

non-contrast narrow focus.

330 360 390 420 450 duration of focus exponent (ms) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type all speakers speaker NP (female)

Figure 3: Differences in duration of focus exponent (mean values) in relation to sentence type, speaker NP

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Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Higher accent peaks

◮ Two speaker show a highly significant effect of nuclear

accent pitch hight on sentence type.

100 200 300 nuclear accent peak (Hz) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type speaker NP (female)

Figure 4: Differences in pitch height of nuclear accent peak (mean values) in relation to sentence type, speaker NP

9 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Greater pitch excursion

◮ Perceived prominence is very often not a correlate of

pitch height, but of relative pitch excursion.

◮ The data from the production experiment show that for

all speakers the nuclear rise excursion in sentence type 1 (broad focus) is significantly smaller than the rise in sentence type 5 (contrastive focus).

◮ The data for speaker CB indicate tendencies towards a

gradual increase of the pitch excursion as the focus domain narrows, plus a sharp increase from narrow to contrastive focus.

2 4 6 8 10 12 pitch ex- cursion nuclear rise (semi- tones) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type speaker CB (male)

Figure 5: Differences in pitch excursion of nuclear accent rise (mean values) in relation to sentence type, speaker CB

10 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Late accent peaks

◮ Another indicator of prominence consists in late accent

peaks.

◮ Two speakers showed such a trend: the smaller the

focus domain, the later the peak measured in ms from the accented syllable onset.

Figure 6: Differences in nuclear peak position (mean values) in relation to sentence type, speaker MG

50 100 150 200 250 300 nuclear peak position (ms from word onset) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type speaker NP (female) speaker MG (female)

11 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Articulatory gestures and focus marking

◮ The study in Hermes et al. (2008) reports on a

production experiment investigating tonal and articulatory means of encoding different focus structures in German.

◮ The movements of the upper and lower lips during the

production of target words occurring in four different focus conditions were examined.

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Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

The Experiment

Questions:

• 1. Will Norbert Dr. Bahber treffen? Does Norbert want to

meet Dr. Bahber?

• 2. Was gibt´s Neues? What´s new?
• 3. Wen will Melanie treffen? Whom does Melanie want to

meet?

• 4. Will Melanie Dr. Werner treffen? Does Melanie want to

meet Dr. Werner? Answers: test word in: Melanie will Dr. Bahber treffen.

• 1. [ ]focus

background

• 2. [

]focus broad focus 3. [ ]focus narrow focus

• 4. [ ]focus contrastive focus

(lit.: Melanie wants Dr. Bahber to-meet)

13 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Labeling of the data

Figure 1: Labelling scheme; from top to bottom:

• scillogram, F0 curve, velocity and position curve
• f lip aperture (LA); target word B/i:/ber.

F0 LA-vel LA-pos

!!!!!!!!!"""#$""!""%"!!!"!

p2 p3 min1 max1 min2 max2 p1

H*

c1 v1 c2 v2

• pen

close

14 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Results and discussion

Accent types

◮ All three speakers deaccented the target words when

they occurred in the background.

◮ In broad focus, speakers used downsteps and upsteps. ◮ In narrow focus, two speaker only used upsteps. ◮ In contrastive focus, all three speakers always used

upsteps.

Table 1: Most frequently produced accent types per speaker and focus condition.

speaker back- ground broad narrow contras- tive DM Ø !H* ^H* ^H* AH Ø !H* !H* H* ^H* ^H* WP Ø ^H* ^H* ^H*

15 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Acoustic durations

◮ For all three speakers there was a significant increase

in word duration from background to contrastive focus, as well as from broad to contrastive focus.

◮ However, none of the three speakers showed a

significant increase in word duration from broad to narrow focus.

330 360 390 420 450 duration of focus exponent (ms) 1 2 3 4 5 sentence type all speakers speaker NP (female)

Figure 3: Differences in duration of focus exponent (mean values) in relation to sentence type, speaker NP

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Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Kinematic results

◮ Kinematic results are presented for two speakers for the

vowel /i:/.

◮ The figure shows averaged trajectories for the distance

between upper and lower lip during the production of the target word, for each focus condition separately.

◮ Low displacements indicate that the lips are closed for

the production of the stop consonants.

◮ High values indicate open lips during the vowels. ◮ Going from background through broad and narrow to

contrastive focus there is an increase in duration and lip aperture !" #$ " %& !" #$ " %&

17 / 17 Focus Marking in German Categorial and gradient prosody (Baumann et al. 2006) Results and discussion Articulatory gestures and focus marking The experiment Results and discussion

Bibliographie

Baumann, S., M. Grice & S. Steindamm (2006). Prosodic Marking of Focus Domains - Categorical or Gradient? In Proceedings SpeechProsody 2006. Dresden, Germany, pp. 301–304. URL http://aune.lpl.univ-aix.fr/˜sprosig/sp2006/contents/papers/PS3-09 0065.pdf. F´ ery, C. (1993). German Intonational Patterns. No. 285 in Linguistische Arbeiten. T¨ ubingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. Hermes, A., J. Becker, D. M¨ ucke, S. Baumann & M. Grice (2008). Articulatory Gestures and Focus Marking in German. In Proceedings Speech Prosody

• 2008. Campinas, Brasil, pp. 457–460. URL

http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/phonetik/Institut/Mitarbeiter/sbauman1/sbaum/ hermes becker muecke baumann grice sp2008 revised.pdf.

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