CoPaSul Manual -- Contour-based parametric and superpositional intonation stylization

The purposes of the CoPaSul toolkit are (1) automatic prosodic annotation and (2) prosodic feature extraction from syllable to utterance level. CoPaSul stands for contour-based, parametric, superpositional intonation stylization. In this framework intonation is represented as a superposition of global and local contours that are described parametrically in terms of polynomial coefficients. On the global level (usually associated but not necessarily restricted to intonation phrases) the stylization serves to represent register in terms of time-varying F0 level and range. On the local level (e.g. accent groups), local contour shapes are described. From this parameterization several features related to prosodic boundaries and prominence can be derived. Furthermore, by coefficient clustering prosodic contour classes can be obtained in a bottom-up way. Next to the stylization-based feature extraction also standard F0 and energy measures (e.g. mean and variance) as well as rhythmic aspects can be calculated. At the current state automatic annotation comprises: segmentation into interpausal chunks, syllable nucleus extraction, and unsupervised localization of prosodic phrase boundaries and prominent syllables. F0 and partly also energy feature sets can be derived for: standard measurements (as median and IQR), register in terms of F0 level and range, prosodic boundaries, local contour shapes, bottom-up derived contour classes, Gestalt of accent groups in terms of their deviation from higher level prosodic units, as well as for rhythmic aspects quantifying the relation between F0 and energy contours and prosodic event rates

Parameterization of prosodic headedness

Prosodic headedness generally refers to the location of relevant prosodic events at the left or right end of prosodic constituents. In a bottom-up procedure based on a computational F0 stylization we tested several measures to quantify headedness in parametrical and categorical terms for intonation in the accentual phrase (AP) domain. These measures refer to F0 level and range trends as well as to F0 contour patterns within APs. We tested the suitability of this framework for Hungarian and French known to be left- and right-headed, respectively, and applied it to Slovak whose headedness status is yet less clear. The prosodic differences of Hungarian and French were well captured by several of the proposed parameters, so that from their values for Slovak it can be concluded that Slovak tends to be a left-headed language

Parameterization of prosodic headedness

Prosodic headedness generally refers to the location of relevant prosodic events at the left or right end of prosodic constituents. In a bottom-up procedure based on a computational F0 stylization we tested several measures to quantify headedness in parametrical and categorical terms for intonation in the accentual phrase (AP) domain. These measures refer to F0 level and range trends as well as to F0 contour patterns within APs. We tested the suitability of this framework for Hungarian and French known to be left- and right-headed, respectively, and applied it to Slovak whose headedness status is yet less clear. The prosodic differences of Hungarian and French were well captured by several of the proposed parameters, so that from their values for Slovak it can be concluded that Slovak tends to be a left-headed language

Parameterization of prosodic headedness

Prosodic headedness generally refers to the location of relevant prosodic events at the left or right end of prosodic constituents. In a bottom-up procedure based on a computational F0 stylization we tested several measures to quantify headedness in parametrical and categorical terms for intonation in the accentual phrase (AP) domain. These measures refer to F0 level and range trends as well as to F0 contour patterns within APs. We tested the suitability of this framework for Hungarian and French known to be left- and right-headed, respectively, and applied it to Slovak whose headedness status is yet less clear. The prosodic differences of Hungarian and French were well captured by several of the proposed parameters, so that from their values for Slovak it can be concluded that Slovak tends to be a left-headed language