Universal and language-specific processing : the case of prosody

A key question in the science of language is how speech processing can be influenced by both language-universal and language-specific mechanisms (Cutler, Klein, & Levinson, 2005). My graduate research aimed to address this question by adopting a crosslanguage approach to compare languages with different phonological systems. Of all components of linguistic structure, prosody is often considered to be one of the most language-specific dimensions of speech. This can have significant implications for our understanding of language use, because much of speech processing is specifically tailored to the structure and requirements of the native language. However, it is still unclear whether prosody may also play a universal role across languages, and very little comparative attempts have been made to explore this possibility. In this thesis, I examined both the production and perception of prosodic cues to prominence and phrasing in native speakers of English and Mandarin Chinese. In focus production, our research revealed that English and Mandarin speakers were alike in how they used prosody to encode prominence, but there were also systematic language-specific differences in the exact degree to which they enhanced the different prosodic cues (Chapter 2). This, however, was not the case in focus perception, where English and Mandarin listeners were alike in the degree to which they used prosody to predict upcoming prominence, even though the precise cues in the preceding prosody could differ (Chapter 3). Further experiments examining prosodic focus prediction in the speech of different talkers have demonstrated functional cue equivalence in prosodic focus detection (Chapter 4). Likewise, our experiments have also revealed both crosslanguage similarities and differences in the production and perception of juncture cues (Chapter 5). Overall, prosodic processing is the result of a complex but subtle interplay of universal and language-specific structure

Tone sandhi, prosodic phrasing, and focus marking in Wenzhou Chinese

In most languages, focus (i.e. highlighting information) is marked by modifying the melody of the sentence. But how is focus marked in a Chinese dialect with eight different citation tones and a complex tonal phonology?This thesis investigates the connection between tonal realization and tone change (tone sandhi) in Wenzhou Chinese, and whether and how such a connection is conditioned by prosodic structure and focus marking. Experiments were conducted with young speakers of Wenzhou Chinese, whose speech was acoustically analyzed so as to investigate the application domain of tone sandhi and the influence of focus thereon, the tonal realization on the word and phrase level and its interaction with focus, the pre-planning of sentential pitch, as well as the realization of referents with different information statuses. The experimental findings suggest that the application, but not the implementation, of tone sandhi is independent of focus, and that focus and prosodic structure have similar but independent effects on the realization of lexical tones. It is also shown that pitch scaling is sensitive to syntactic structure and complexity, and that the marking of givenness, broad focus, and narrow focus leads to discrete levels along the same acoustic parameters. These findings are of interest to researchers working on lexical tone, prosodic structure, and how information structure categories such as focus affect tonal realization and prosodic phrasing.LEI Universiteit LeidenNWO VIDI grant 061084338 to dr. Y. ChenLanguage Use in Past and Presen

Variation, norms and prescribed standard in the Mandarin Chinese spoken in Singapore

Relatório de estágio do mestrado em Economia, apresentado à Faculdade de Economia da Universidade de Coimbra, sob a orientação de Carlos Carreira e Edgar Silva.No decorrer do estágio curricular, verificou-se o incremento do número de processos de insolvência de empresas-clientes da My Business, a entidade de acolhimento do presente estágio curricular. A recessão económica de 2008-2012 teve um grande impacto na economia portuguesa, refletindo-se na dinâmica das empresas, onde se observam variações significativas das taxas de entrada e saída de empresas e de criação e destruição de emprego nos diversos sectores. Este trabalho tem um duplo objetivo: primeiro, apresentar e enquadrar sectorialmente e regionalmente a entidade de acolhimento; segundo, analisar os efeitos da crise económica na dinâmica da indústria transformadora portuguesa. Na sua concretização adotou-se uma abordagem não experimental, delineando uma via descritiva e exploratória. Entre 2008 e 2012, observou-se um aumento substancial na destruição de emprego relativamente ao período de pré-crise e um pico na taxa de saída de empresas do mercado em 2011, coincidindo com a aplicação do Memorando de Entendimento. A saída de empresas parece ser influenciada negativamente por variáveis como o nível de produtividade e a dimensão da empresa. A entrada de empresas não apresenta qualquer impacto estatisticamente significativo na taxa de risco de saída das empresas. Durante o período de crise, as restrições financeiras das empresas são preponderantes sobre a produtividade no risco de saída

Analyzing Prosody with Legendre Polynomial Coefficients

This investigation demonstrates the effectiveness of Legendre polynomial coefficients representing prosodic contours within the context of two different tasks: nativeness classification and sarcasm detection. By making use of accurate representations of prosodic contours to answer fundamental linguistic questions, we contribute significantly to the body of research focused on analyzing prosody in linguistics as well as modeling prosody for machine learning tasks. Using Legendre polynomial coefficient representations of prosodic contours, we answer prosodic questions about differences in prosody between native English speakers and non-native English speakers whose first language is Mandarin. We also learn more about prosodic qualities of sarcastic speech. We additionally perform machine learning classification for both tasks, (achieving an accuracy of 72.3% for nativeness classification, and achieving 81.57% for sarcasm detection). We recommend that linguists looking to analyze prosodic contours make use of Legendre polynomial coefficients modeling; the accuracy and quality of the resulting prosodic contour representations makes them highly interpretable for linguistic analysis

Temporal articulatory stability, phonological variation, and lexical contrast preservation in diaspora Tibetan

This dissertation examines how lexical tone can be represented with articulatory gestures, and the ways a gestural perspective can inform synchronic and diachronic analysis of the phonology and phonetics of a language. Tibetan is chosen an example of a language with interacting laryngeal and tonal phonology, a history of tonogenesis and dialect diversification, and recent contact-induced realignment of the tonal and consonantal systems. Despite variation in voice onset time (VOT) and presence/absence of the lexical tone contrast, speakers retain a consistent relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures. Recent research has attempted to integrate tone into the framework of Articulatory Phonology through the addition of tone gestures. Unlike other theories of phonetics-phonology, Articulatory Phonology uniquely incorporates relative timing as a key parameter. This allows the system to represent contrasts instantiated not just in the presence or absence of gestures, but also in how gestures are timed with each other. Building on the different predictions of various timing relations, along with the historical developments in the language, hypotheses are generated and tested with acoustic and articulatory experiments. Following an overview of relevant theory, the second chapter surveys past literature on the history of sound change and present phonological diversity of Tibetic dialects. Whereas Old Tibetan lacked lexical tone, contrasted voiced and voiceless obstruents, and exhibited complex clusters, a series of overlapping sound changes have led to some modern varieties that are tone, lack clusters, and vary in the expression of voicing and aspiration. Furthermore, speakers in the Tibetan diaspora use a variety that has grown out of the contact between diverse Tibetic dialects. The state of the language and the dynamics of diaspora have created a situation ripe for sound change, including the recombination of elements from different dialects and, potentially, the loss of tone contrasts. The nature of the diaspora Tibetan is investigated through an acoustic corpus study. Recordings made in Kathmandu, Nepal, are being transcribed and forced-aligned into a useful audio corpus. Speakers in the corpus come from diverse backgrounds across and outside traditional Tibetan-speaking regions, but the analysis presented here focuses on speakers who grew up in diaspora, with a mixed input of Standard Tibetan (spyi skad) and other Tibetan varieties. Especially notable among these speakers is the high variability of voice onset time (VOT) and its interaction with tone. An analysis of this data in terms of the relative timing of oral, laryngeal, and tone gestures leads to the generation of hypotheses for testing using articulatory data. The articulatory study is conducted using electromagnetic articulography (EMA), and six Tibetan-speaking participants. The key finding is that the relative timing of consonant and vowel gestures is consistent across phonological categories and across speakers who do and do not contrast tone. This result leads to the conclusion that the relative timing of speech gestures is conserved and acquired independently. Speakers acquire and generalize a limited inventory of timing patterns, and can use timing patterns even when the conditioning environment for the development of those patterns, namely tone, has been lost

Lexical tones and morphotonology

Yongning Na, also known as Mosuo, is a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Southwest China. This book provides a description and analysis of its tone system, progressing from lexical tones towards morphotonology. Tonal changes permeate numerous aspects of the morphosyntax of Yongning Na. They are not the product of a small set of phonological rules, but of a host of rules that are restricted to specific morphosyntactic contexts. Rich morphotonological systems have been reported in this area of Sino-Tibetan, but book-length descriptions remain few. This study of an endangered language contributes to a better understanding of the diversity of prosodic systems in East Asia. The analysis is based on original fieldwork data (made available online), collected over the course of ten years, commencing in 2006

Intonation-lexical tone transfer in the second language acquisition of Mandarin.

Harrison, Alissa May.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-194).Abstracts in English and Chinese.Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1Chapter 1.1 --- Intonation´ؤlexical tone transfer --- p.3Chapter 1.2 --- Unresolved issues of intonation-lexical tone transfer --- p.8Chapter 1.3 --- Objectives of this study --- p.10Chapter 1.4 --- Hypotheses of intonation-lexical tone transfer in L2 Mandarin --- p.12Chapter 1.5 --- Methodology and experimental results --- p.13Chapter 1.6 --- Major findings and conclusions --- p.15Chapter 1.7 --- Outline of the thesis --- p.16Chapter 2 --- "Background of Mandarin, English, and Japanese prosody" --- p.18Chapter 2.1 --- Prosodic phonology --- p.19Chapter 2.1.1 --- Defining the components of prosody --- p.19Chapter 2.1.2 --- Theoretical basis for intonation and lexical tone inter- action --- p.23Chapter 2.2 --- Mandarin prosody --- p.32Chapter 2.3 --- English prosody --- p.41Chapter 2.4 --- Japanese prosody --- p.49Chapter 2.5 --- Summary of prosodic similarities and differences --- p.54Chapter 3 --- Previous studies of intonation and lexical tone acquisition --- p.61Chapter 3.1 --- Second language acquisition --- p.62Chapter 3.1.1 --- Interlanguage --- p.62Chapter 3.1.2 --- Defining transfer --- p.63Chapter 3.1.3 --- Theories of L2 phonological acquisition --- p.66Chapter 3.2 --- Comparison of first and second language acquisition --- p.71Chapter 3.2.1 --- Lexical tone --- p.71Chapter 3.2.2 --- Intonation --- p.74Chapter 3.3 --- L1 intonation transfer in Mandarin L2 lexical tone acquisition --- p.77Chapter 3.3.1 --- Initial hypotheses of intonation-lexical tone transfer --- p.77Chapter 3.3.2 --- Experimental studies claiming intonation-lexical tone transfer --- p.85Chapter 3.3.3 --- Unaddressed issues of previous studies --- p.91Chapter 4 --- Methodology of production and perception experiments --- p.94Chapter 4.1 --- Hypotheses --- p.94Chapter 4.2 --- Design --- p.97Chapter 4.3 --- Subjects --- p.101Chapter 4.4 --- Procedures --- p.102Chapter 4.5 --- Data transcription and statistical analysis --- p.105Chapter 5 --- Results of production and perception experiments --- p.108Chapter 5.1 --- Production experiment results --- p.108Chapter 5.1.1 --- Effect of lexical tone category on pitch production --- p.109Chapter 5.1.2 --- Effect of sentence type on pitch production --- p.119Chapter 5.1.3 --- Summary of tone production results --- p.126Chapter 5.2 --- Perception experiment results --- p.128Chapter 5.2.1 --- Effect of lexical tone category on lexical tone identifi- cation --- p.128Chapter 5.2.2 --- Effect of sentence type on lexical tone identification --- p.136Chapter 5.2.3 --- Summary of tone perception results --- p.143Chapter 6 --- Discussion of experimental results and intonation-lexical tone transfer hypothesis --- p.146Chapter 6.1 --- Analysis of experimental results --- p.147Chapter 6.1.1 --- Lack of postlexical tone transfer --- p.148Chapter 6.1.2 --- Postlexical tone prior to lexical tone acquisition --- p.156Chapter 6.1.3 --- Factors in lexical tone errors --- p.166Chapter 6.2 --- Limitations of methodological design --- p.170Chapter 6.2.1 --- Size of experimental data sample --- p.170Chapter 6.2.2 --- Proficiency levels and testing --- p.172Chapter 6.2.3 --- Method of elicitation --- p.173Chapter 7 --- Conclusions --- p.177Chapter 7.1 --- Summary --- p.177Chapter 7.2 --- Implications --- p.178Chapter 7.2.1 --- Prosodic phonology --- p.178Chapter 7.2.2 --- Second language acquisition --- p.180Chapter 7.3 --- Future Work --- p.181Chapter A --- Production Experiment Materials --- p.195Chapter A.l --- Wordlist --- p.195Chapter A.2 --- Sentences --- p.196Chapter B --- Perception Experiment Materials --- p.199Chapter B.l --- Wordlist --- p.199Chapter B.2 --- Sentences --- p.200Chapter C --- F0 contours of target word productions --- p.20

Postvocalic (r) in urban Indian English

Native varieties of World Englishes can shed light on competing local and international language ideologies and alignments with different standards, while quantitative variationist methods permit dialect internal analysis of structural variation without direct reference to external standards, by focusing on internal linguistic and social constraints. Contributing to these endeavors, this study examines variation in postvocalic (r)-deletion in Indian English (IndE), uncovering rhotic patterns which are significantly influenced by, and illuminate, distinct urban Indian sociolinguistic alignments. The results also demonstrate that IndE is diverging from both its British colonially influenced past, and from modern internationally prestigious English varieties, through real and apparent time analysis. This analysis focuses on the larger sociolinguistic milieu of IndE emergence and evolution, offering a nuanced response to superficial and oftentimes categorical IndE grammars. Further, studying native speakers offers a counterpoint to L1 contact explanations for IndE stabilization and evolution in the postcolonial context.</jats:p