Crosslinguistic trends in tone change A review of tone change studies in East and Southeast Asia

Ground-breaking studies on how Bangkok Thai tones have changed over the past 100 years (Pittayaporn 2007, 2018; Zhu et al. 2015) reveal a pattern that Zhu et al. (2015) term the “clockwise tone shift cycle:” low > falling > high level or rising-falling > rising > falling-rising or low. The present study addresses three follow-up questions: (1) Are tone changes like those seen in Bangkok Thai also attested in other languages? (2) What other tone changes are repeated across multiple languages? (3) What phonetic biases are most likely to be the origins of the reported changes? A typological review of 52 tone change studies across 45 Sinitic, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, and Tibeto-Burman languages reveals that clockwise changes are by far the most common. The paper concludes by exploring how tonal truncation (Xu 2017) generates synchronic variation that matches the diachronic patterns; this suggests that truncation is a key mechanism in tone change

Multiple acoustic cues for Korean stops and automatic speech recognition

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse acoustic characteristics of Korean stops by way of multivariate statistical tests, and to apply the results of the analysis in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) of Korean. Three acoustic cues that differentiate three types of Ko¬ rean oral stops are closure duration, Voice Onset Time (VOT) and fundamental frequency (FO) of a vowel after a stop. We review the characteristics of these parameters previously reported in various phonetic studies and test their usefulness for differentiating the three types of stops on two databases, one with controlled contexts, as in other phonetic stud¬ ies, and the other a continuous speech database designed for ASR. Statistical tests on both databases confirm that the three types of stops can be differentiated by the three acoustic parameters. In order to exploit these parameters for ASR, a context dependent Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based baseline system with a short pause model is built, which results in great improvement of performance compared to other systems. For mod¬ elling of the three acoustic parameters, an automatic segmentation technique for closure and VOT is developed. Samples of each acoustic parameter are modelled with univariate and multivariate probability distribution functions. Stop probability from these models is integrated by a post-processing technique. Our results show that integration of stop prob¬ ability does not make much improvement over the results of a baseline system. However, the results suggest that stop probabilities will be useful in determining the correct hy¬ pothesis with a larger lexicon containing more minimal pairs of words that differ by the identity of just one stop

Introducing prosodic phonetics

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An acoustic-phonetic descriptive analysis of Kagoshima Japanese tonal phenomena

This thesis presents a linguistic-phonetic description of the acoustic properties of the contrastive accentual patterns in Kagoshima Japanese. Kagoshima Japanese is one of the traditionally so-called two pattern varieties of Japanese. Different phonological analyses of the contrast are described in detail in order to situate the phonetic description. Data from four native speakers—two males and two females—are used, appropriately log z-score normalised to yield mean normalised FO curves necessary for linguistic-phonetic description. Normalisation procedures are discussed, justified and explained. The acoustic realisation of the Kagoshima Japanese contrast is specified on words from one to seven syllables in length, and a surface representation proposed within Autosegmental-Metrical theory. Some microprosodic aspects are also examined, especially in terms of the effect of the syllable-rhyme structure (i.e. vowel length, final nasal) on FO. In addition is examined what happens when accentual units are juxtaposed in three types of syntagms (noun phrase e.g. nagaka tamago; possessive phrase e.g. mago no kimono; simple sentence, e.g. sakana ga nigeru). Where appropriate, comparisons are drawn with Standard Japanese to highlight similarities and differences in tonality. It is shown that, like Standard Japanese, the Kagoshima Japanese accentual contrast is realised as ± falling pitch/FO, and also like SJ, the contrast is manifested globally, throughout the word. Microprosodically, it is shown that syllable-final nasals are associated with higher FO, not necessarily on the nasal itself, and that heavy syllables also evince a higher FO. Finally, two extrinsic allotones—level and falling—are demonstrated for one of the accentual types, depending on its rhyme constituents. As far as the juxtaposed data are concerned, it is shown that, unlike Standard Japanese, no deaccentuation is involved. Moreover, a differential effect is demonstrated, in terms of FO downstep, with respect to syntactic type: noun phrases behave differently from possessive phrases and simple sentences in showing no downstep. It is suggested that the magnitude of downstep in Kagoshima Japanese may be smaller than in Standard Japanese. It is proposed that the linguistic-phonetic representations derived in this thesis can be used not only to investigate within-language linguistic features (e.g. the Kagoshima Japanese accentual contrast), but also to compare Kagoshima with the corresponding linguistic-phonetic representations of other Japanese varieties

A study on form and function of prosody based on acoustics, interpretation, and modelling - with evidence from the analysis by synthesis of Mandarin speech prosody

An analysis-by-synthesis study on Mandarin speech prosody is conducted in the present dissertation. The features of Mandarin speech prosody are discussed by focusing on two salient aspects: the function of prosody and the form of prosody. The study attempts to find a plausible way in which the two aspects can be mapped onto each other through the functional analysis of prosody and the multi-level formal representation. The form of Mandarin speech prosody is a complex F0 picture due to the simultaneous uses of pitch contours by both lexical tones and sentential intonation. The phenomenon of tone sandhi in speech context triggers more puzzling issues when researchers are confronted with the acoustic form of Mandarin prosody. The functional use of prosody in Mandarin speech concerns: at the lexical level for word identity (Tone1, Tone2, Tone3, Tone4, and Tone0); at the sentential level for prominence marking (sentence accents) and the indication of prosodic boundaries (intonation boundary tones). In the present study, the analysis of prosodic function at the two levels provides a basic framework in coding the surface melodic form of Mandarin prosody, which consists of pitch contours in tonal units and boundary tones at the beginning and end of intonation unit. For the formal representation of Mandarin speech prosody, the surface F0 contour of each utterance is coded into a sequence of INTSINT symbols, and subject to the Prozed tool for speech synthesis. It is shown that the synthesized stimuli derived from the symbolic coding can closely follow the melodic features and correctly express the prosodic function of the original Mandarin utterances. The present study employs acoustic data, symbolic coding, and speech synthesis for the derivative mapping between prosodic function and form, which aims to interpret the complex prosodic phenomenon, and provide an insight for the annotation and analysis of Mandarin speech prosody

Rozdíly realizace tónů hanojského a saigonského dialektu vietnamštiny mezi čteným a polospontánním mluveným projevem

Hlavním cílem této disertace je popis rozdílů realizací tónů mezi hanojským s saigonským dialektem se zaměřením na situaci ve čteném a polospontánním mluveném projevu. Výzkum se zabývá zejména produkcí, avšak je doplněn i oddílem, který řeší problematiku percepce tónů s využitím percepčního testu. Oddíl 2.1. popisuje tonalitu a tónové jazyky v obecném smyslu. V oddíle 2.2. se popisuje vietnamský jazyk s důrazem na tónové inventáře obou zkoumaných dialektů. Zmiňuje se též vznik a vývoj tónů obecně i v rámci vietnamštiny. Třetí kapitola představuje metodu výzkumu, zejména výběr mluvčích, přípravu materiálu a nahrávek, extrakce dat a přípravu analýz a percepčního testu. Čtvrtá kapitola je rozdělena do tří oddílů. Oddíl 4.1. hovoří o realizacích tónů v izolaci a ve speciálně zvoleném kontextu. Jeho účelem je popsat chování tónů co nejméně ovlivněných okolními proměnnými. Výsledky této analýzy by měly být srovnatelné s již publikovanými studiemi na stejné téma. V oddíle 4.2. je na data nahlédnuto z kvantitativní perspektivy a výsledky této analýzy by měly věrněji reflektovat jazykovou realitu. Oddíl 4.3. představuje percepční test, jehož účelem je zmapovat schopnost rozlišování tónů mimo přirozený kontext. Výsledky analýz indikují zásadní rozdíly mezi konturami tónů hanojského a saigonského dialektu....The chief objective of this dissertation is the description of tone realization differences in Hanoian and Saigonese dialects based on a representative sample of recorded material, with special focus on read monologue and semi-spontaneous conversational speech. The research discusses mainly issues of tone production but it is complemented by a section on tone perception in form of a perception test. The theoretical background in Section 2.1. describes the topic of tonality and tonal languages in general. Section 2.2. is devoted to the description of the Vietnamese language and attention is specifically paid to tonal inventories of both researched dialects. Tonogenesis is mentioned on a general level as well as in the Vietnamese language in particular. Chapter 3 introduces the research methodology, namely the speaker selection, speech material preparation and recording, data extraction and preparation for the analyses and the perception test. Chapter 4 is divided into three sections. Section 4.1. speaks about tone realizations in isolation and carefully preselected context. Its goal is to investigate the behaviour of tonal contours influenced by as few variables as possible. The results should be comparable to the findings of previously conducted studies. Section 4.2. strives to assess data from a...Institute of PhoneticsFonetický ústavFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Neutral Tone in Mandarin: Representation and Interaction with Utterance-level Prosody

In Standard Mandarin, there are syllables that do not carry any of the four citation tones (T1: High-level tone, T2: Mid-rising tone, T3: Low-convex tone and T4: High-falling tone), and they are said to have a neutral tone (NT). These syllables are usually shorter, lighter, prosodically grouped with the preceding CT-bearing syllables. These characteristics of NT have led to a prevailing view that it has no underlying phonological specification. However, research has focused more on how the surface pitch variations of NT are realized rather than the underlying representation of NT. In contrast, morphological, sociolinguistic and diachronic work on NT has suggested that NT may not be a homogeneous entity. In this thesis, I provide acoustic and psycholinguistic evidence that there are two types of NT, Intrinsic NT and Derived NT. Intrinsic NT refers to morphemes that were lexicalized as tone-deleted, unstressed syllables even before the formation of the four CTs of modern Mandarin. Derived NT refers to morphemes derived from the CTs via stress-related tone-deletion. In Part A, the phonological representation of Intrinsic and Derived NT is explored through two production and two processing experiments. The results show that Intrinsic NT is likely to have an underspecified tonal target while Derived NTs are underlyingly CTs. In addition, both subtypes of NT are metrically light, unlike heavy CTs. Part B explores the interaction between NTs and utterance-level prosody in production and perception experiments. NT-bearing syllables have lengthening patterns under focus similar to CT-bearing syllables, in contrast to the realization of unstressed syllables in English. In perception, the identification of intonation (Statement vs. Question) on Intrinsic NT was similar to Derived NT. When compared to CTs, the NTs elicit less bias towards question than T4, and higher accuracy than T2, which may result from their simpler surface representations.CHINA Scholarship COUNCIL (CSC) and Cambridge Trus