Lahktarindid suulises eesti keeles: uurimus infostruktuuri raamistikus

Käesolev doktoriväitekiri „Initial and final detachments in spoken Estonian: a study in the framework of Information Structuring“ käsitleb lahktarindeid eesti suulises keeles infostruktuuri raamistikus. Lahktarinditena (inglise keeles detachments, dislocations) vaadeldakse siin konstruktsioone, milles leksikaalne element esineb kas enne pealauset või pärast seda, kusjuures pealauses esineb leksikaalse elemendiga samaviiteline asesõna. Neid konstruktsioone peetakse spontaanses keelekasutuses universaalseteks, kuid nende esinemus ja funktsioonid on keeleti mõnevõrra erinevad. Lahktarindeid ei ole eesti keeles varem uuritud; üldiselt on neid keeleuurimustes seotud infostruktuuri mõistetega nagu teema ja postreema, st nad tõstavad esile infostruktuuri tasandil leksikaalses üksuses ühelt poolt teema, mille kohta pealauses (reema) midagi öeldakse ning teiselt poolt esinevad nad struktuurides, kus pealause ehk reema on lausungis esimesel kohal, millele järgneb leksikaalse üksusena postreema. Et infostruktuuri tasandist lähtuvaid uurimusi eesti keele kohta tehtud pole, antakse väitekirja esimestes peatükkides ülevaade valdkonna problemaatikast ning käesolevas töös olulistest lähenemistest. Väitekiri sisaldab ka ülevaadet enamikust (süntaksit käsitlevatest) uurimustest eesti keele kohta, milles kasutatakse infostruktuuri mõisteid. Korpuseanalüüsis vaadeldakse lähemalt ülalmainitud kaht tüüpi lahktarindeid, keskendudes peamiselt referendi informatsioonilisele staatusele, tarindite erinevatele funktsioonidele ja toimimisele diskursuse tasandil. Väitekirja tulemusena võib lahktarindite kohta väita järgmist: tegemist on suulises kõnes levinud struktuuridega, mis toetavad suulisele kõnele iseloomulikku info edastamist lühemate üksuste kaupa. Tarindites viidatavad referendid on enamasti kas vestluses juba esinenud või on tuletatavad vestluse üldisest raamistikust. Postreemat sisaldavates tarindites, kus leksikaalne referent tuleb alles lausungi lõpus, esineb rohkem ka eelneva sisuga seostamata referente. Lisaks vormilistele erinevustele ning nendest tulenevalt on nende kahe struktuuri puhul selgelt näha erinevaid strateegiaid referendi sissetoomise puhul ning selle käsitlemisel edaspidises diskursuses.The present thesis “Initial and final detachments in spoken Estonian: a study in the framework of Information Structuring” analyses detachment constructions (initial and final detachments) in spoken Estonian, in the framework of Information Structuring. Initial detachments are defined as structures where a detached lexical element precedes the main clause, which contains a coreferential pronoun; in final detachments, the referent is at first referred to by a pronoun in the main clause, followed by the lexical element in a detached element at the end of the utterance. These structures have been considered universals in spontaneous oral language, but their functions and degree of grammaticalization differ in various languages. Detached constructions have not been investigated before in Estonian. They have been associated to the notions of Theme and Post-rheme at the level of Information Structuring, i.e. initial detachment introduces an element that is considered as Theme at the informational level and final detachment serves to introduce the Post-rheme. Given that there are no studies dedicated to the level of Information Structuring as independent object of investigation, an overview about the main problems of this domain is provided in first chapters of the thesis, followed by a summary of studies (in syntax) about Estonian where the notions of Information Structuring framework have been used. The analysis of the corpus concentrates mainly on the informational status of the referent, different functions of these constructions and their functioning at the discourse level. The analysis revealed that detached constructions allow the information to be staged during the discourse building work; as concerns the informational status of the referents, it could be shown that they have mostly been mentioned before during the conversation or are present in the thematic frame of the discourse. Final detachments are also used in order to introduce unmentioned and new referents. Besides the formal differences, and stemming from them, the two constructions are clearly different as concerns the mechanisms of introduction of the referent and its treatment in the discourse

I feel you: the design and evaluation of a domotic affect-sensitive spoken conversational agent

We describe the work on infusion of emotion into a limited-task autonomous spoken conversational agent situated in the domestic environment, using a need-inspired task-independent emotion model (NEMO). In order to demonstrate the generation of affect through the use of the model, we describe the work of integrating it with a natural-language mixed-initiative HiFi-control spoken conversational agent (SCA). NEMO and the host system communicate externally, removing the need for the Dialog Manager to be modified, as is done in most existing dialog systems, in order to be adaptive. The first part of the paper concerns the integration between NEMO and the host agent. The second part summarizes the work on automatic affect prediction, namely, frustration and contentment, from dialog features, a non-conventional source, in the attempt of moving towards a more user-centric approach. The final part reports the evaluation results obtained from a user study, in which both versions of the agent (non-adaptive and emotionally-adaptive) were compared. The results provide substantial evidences with respect to the benefits of adding emotion in a spoken conversational agent, especially in mitigating users' frustrations and, ultimately, improving their satisfaction

Donate Speech : Collecting and Sharing a Large-Scale Speech Database for Social Sciences, Humanities and Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation

The Donate Speech campaign aimed to collect 10 000 hours of ordinary, casual Finnish speech to be used for studying language as well as for developing technology and services that can be readily used in the languages spoken in Finland. In this project, particular attention has been paid to allowing for both academic and commercial use of the material. Even though the ambitious target currently seems to evade us, the Donate Speech campaign has managed to collect an extensive resource of more than 3500 h of Finnish colloquial speech with more than 200 000 speech recordings by roughly 50 000 speakers from all over Finland in just a few months.Peer reviewe

Недосягаемая норма: на стыке диалектной загребской и литературной хорватской акцентуации

The paper discusses the accentual accommodation by speakers of the urban dialect of Zagreb (the capital of Croatia), which has a dynamic free accent, to the Standard Croatian (Neo-Štokavian) pitch accent (with rising and falling tones). The accommodation occurs in formal settings — the basis of this research is the corpus of 16 one-hour interviews with native Zagreb dialect speakers (8 male, 8 female) from a TV show on Croatian national television (HRT). The Zagreb dialect speakers cannot fully reproduce the prescribed standard accentuation, so they only approximate it by inconsistently changing the place of stress. The level of accommodation varies among speakers. The prescribed Croatian standard accentuation is different than in languages like English, because it cannot be acquired fully by many speakers due mainly to reasons of phonetic complexity. The basics of the Zagreb dialect accentuation and its complex relation to the standard language accentuation (due to many innovations in the dialect and a range of conservative and innovative varieties) are also analyzed. This paper is the first to describe the phenomenon in detail, based on concrete data.Статья освещает акцентнoe приспособление в речи носителей городского диалекта столицы Хорватии Загреба, имеющего разноместное силовое ударение, к литературному хорватскому (новоштокавскому) тональному ударению (с восходящими и нисходящими тонами). Πриспособление происходит в формальной обстановке — эта работа основана на корпусе из 16 часовых интервью с носителями загребского диалекта (8 мужчин, 8 женщин) из передачи хорватского государственного телевидения (HRT) с массовой аудиторией. Загребчанe не могут полностью воспроизвести нормативную акцентуацию, а лишь приближаются к ней, непоследовательно сдвигая ударение. Степень приспособления разнится от носителя к носителю. В данной работе это явление впервые подробно описано с учётом конкретных данных. Нормативная новоштокавская акцентуация отлична, например, от английской, в частности в том, что мало кто из хорватов-неновоштокавцев вполне овладевает акцентной нормой — прежде всего из-за её фонетической сложности. В работе также анализируются основы загребской акцентуации в её сложном отношении к нормативной (в связи с многочисленными инновациями в диалекте и наличием целого ряда более или менее архаичных и инновативных говоров)

Acoustic measures of glottalization in Czech

Hlasivkový ráz na začátku slova před vokálem je v češtině užívaný jako hraniční signál. Zatímco jeho kontextuální výskyt je predikovatelný, není vždy realizován. Navíc není vždy realizován jako kanonická hlasivková explozíva. Akustické parametry, které by kvanitifkovaly a identifikovaly rozličné typy rázů, byly vybrány na základě průzkumu literatury a exploratorní datové analýzy. Tyto akustické parametry jsou následně použity v kategorizačním modelu strojového učení. Výsledky ukazují, že i s menším počtem parametrů je možné získat uspokojivé výsledky, a tím pádem jsou tyto parametry považovány za vhodné pro charakterizaci rázů. akustika parametry kategorizace ráz hlasivková explozívaWord-initial vowel glottalization is used in Czech as a boundary signal. While its contextual occurrence is predictable, it is not always realized. In addition, it is not always realized as a canonical glottal stop. Acoustic parameters which would quantify and identify the various types of glottalizations are selected based on literature research and exploratory data analysis. These acoustic parameters are then used in a machine learning categorization model. Results show that with a small number of parameters, satisfactory results can be obtained, and thus these parameters are deemed suitable in characterizing these glottalizations. acoustics parameters categorization glottalization glottal stopFonetický ústavInstitute of PhoneticsFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Musical improvisation as the place where being speaks : Heidegger, language and sources of Christian hope

The thesis enters several under-examined areas. First, improvisatory music will be considered as a human phenomenon in the widest sense (Chapter 1 ), and a phenomenon destined to suffer relative decline in the cultural environment of the modern West (Chapter 2). In consequence, the language in which improvisatory music is now discussed in the West will be shown to carry a negative charge (Chapter 3). Among various philosophies of music in the Western tradition, none appears to have foregrounded improvisatory music specifically. However Heidegger's philosophy, it will be suggested, harbours inner trends which favour the idea of music as a central component in philosophical discourse (Chapter 4) and may be used as a starting point for a re-emergent understanding of musical improvisation as a metaphysical principle (Chapter 5). Improvisation in music will be seen to be linked to the centrality of hope in human experience, and this will be exemplified in relation to certain cultures and twentieth-century composers (Chapter 6). Further to this connection between improvisation and hope, improvisation in a Christian liturgical context will be examined. There is a dearth of existing discussion, not only regarding improvisatory music in Christian liturgy, but liturgical spontaneity in general (Chapter 7)

Vuorovaikutuksellisia haasteita autististen varhaisnuorten keskusteluissa: prosodian ja ei-kielellisen viestinnän rooli toisen aloittamissa korjauksissa

This paper focusses on repair sequences occurring in institutional interaction with autistic preadolescents. More precisely, the paper discusses the role of prosodic and non-verbal features in situations where the participants of interaction have difficulties understanding each other. The discussion will include analysis of the prosodic and non-verbal features of trouble-source turns that launch other-initiated repairs. Methodologically, the study falls within the framework of conversation analysis (CA). The data consist of audio-visual material recorded from group therapy sessions during which 11- to 13-year-old Finnish-speaking boys afflicted with autism talk about their lives with one another and with their therapists. The study findings suggest that certain prosodic and non-verbal features are often associated with trouble-source turns. For example, in 84% of the cases here, there is no eye contact between the speaker producing a trouble-source turn and the one who initiates the repair sequence. Sometimes the lack of eye contact is associated with overlapping speech (38%). Concerning the prosody, the most frequent feature is a creaky voice, which occurs in 35% of the trouble-source turns. A quiet voice (31%), large pitch excursions (24%), stretched syllables (18%) and jerky speech rhythms (16%) are examples of other prosodic features that could be found in the trouble-source turns of the data. The results of this study demonstrate that ASD persons’ tendency to avoid direct eye contact as well as the occurrences of certain deviant prosodic features in their speech are factors that affect the fluidity of interaction and are related to the creation of understanding problems. However, only in a very few cases do non-verbal and prosodic features seem to be the main cause of the problem of understanding. The two most common causes of understanding problems in these data are overly literal interpretation of speech and topical discontinuities. The study also gives new evidence about autistic persons’ pragmatic and interactional skills. Indeed, the data include passages in which the informants seem to have the ability to make certain inferences about the mental states of others. This is remarkable, because it is known that the ability in question is impaired in autism.This paper focusses on repair sequences occurring in institutional interaction with autistic preadolescents. More precisely, the paper discusses the role of prosodic and non-verbal features in situations where the participants of interaction have difficulties understanding each other. The discussion will include analysis of the prosodic and non-verbal features of trouble-source turns that launch other-initiated repairs. Methodologically, the study falls within the framework of conversation analysis (CA). The data consist of audio-visual material recorded from group therapy sessions during which 11- to 13-year-old Finnish-speaking boys afflicted with autism talk about their lives with one another and with their therapists. The study findings suggest that certain prosodic and non-verbal features are often associated with trouble-source turns. For example, in 84% of the cases here, there is no eye contact between the speaker producing a trouble-source turn and the one who initiates the repair sequence. Sometimes the lack of eye contact is associated with overlapping speech (38%). Concerning the prosody, the most frequent feature is a creaky voice, which occurs in 35% of the trouble-source turns. A quiet voice (31%), large pitch excursions (24%), stretched syllables (18%) and jerky speech rhythms (16%) are examples of other prosodic features that could be found in the trouble-source turns of the data. The results of this study demonstrate that ASD persons’ tendency to avoid direct eye contact as well as the occurrences of certain deviant prosodic features in their speech are factors that affect the fluidity of interaction and are related to the creation of understanding problems. However, only in a very few cases do non-verbal and prosodic features seem to be the main cause of the problem of understanding. The two most common causes of understanding problems in these data are overly literal interpretation of speech and topical discontinuities. The study also gives new evidence about autistic persons’ pragmatic and interactional skills. Indeed, the data include passages in which the informants seem to have the ability to make certain inferences about the mental states of others. This is remarkable, because it is known that the ability in question is impaired in autism.Peer reviewe