High peaks versus high plateaux in the identification of two pitch accents in Pisa Italian

International audienceThe role of pitch pattern shape and perceptual target location is investigated here by means of an identification test involving two pitch accent categories in Pisa Italian. The perception test concerned the pitch accents used in contrastive and utterance-initial broad focus and was performed by asking subjects to identify two continua composed of peak and plateau stimuli whose alignment and scaling characteristics were manipulated. In line with previous findings, results show that alignment and scaling both play a role in accent identification and that pitch shape affects subject perception. In particular, plateau stimuli are perceived as late peak stimuli having the same fundamental frequency height or else they are perceived as early peak stimuli realized at a higher frequency

Alignment perception of high intonational plateaux in Italian and German

International audienceThis paper addresses the issue of tonal perception as it relates to special configurations, i.e. fundamental frequency (F0) plateaux. We here review a series of perceptual experiments in two different languages, Italian (Naples and Pisa variety) and German. A subset of the auditory stimuli employed in these studies contained a high F0 plateau, which had to be either identified for a specific tonal category or matched to a previous context. The results show a tendency, for all languages, to match a pitch accent category having a late H peak target to plateau stimuli, which might be due to a universal auditory integration mechanism. This has consequences for intonation models, since the relationship between dynamic characteristics of accentual contours and tonal target location is complex and not always immediately identifiable with turning points

Pitch accent alignment in Romance: primary and secondary associations with metrical structure

International audienceThe article describes the contrastive possibilities of alignment of high accents in three Romance varieties, namely, Central Catalan, Neapolitan Italian, and Pisa Italian. The Romance languages analyzed in this article provide crucial evidence that small differences in alignment in rising accents should be encoded phonologically. To account for such facts within the AM model, the article develops the notion of 'phonological anchoring' as an extension of the concept of secondary association originally proposed by Pierrehumbert & Beckman (1988), and later adopted by Grice (1995), Grice, Ladd & Arvaniti (2000) and others to explain the behavior of edge tones. The Romance data represent evidence that not only peripheral edge tones seek secondary associations. We claim that the phonological representation of pitch accents should include two independent mechanisms to encode alignment properties with metrical structure: (1) encoding of the primary phonological association (or affiliation) between the tone and its tone-bearing unit; and (2), for some specific cases, encoding of the secondary phonological anchoring of tones to prosodic edges (moras, syllables and prosodic words). The Romance data described in the article provide crucial evidence of mora-edge, syllable-edge, and word-edge H tonal associations

Vowel space in hypokinetic dysarthria: : Preliminary investigations.

The paper discusses acoustic and articulatory data on the use of vowel space by speaker affected by Parkinson’s Disease who developed hypokinetic dysarthria. Two experiments involving pathological subjects and matching controls are described, whose general aim is to better understand if the vowel space in Parkinson’s Disease dysarthric subjects is always and homogeneously reduced. In the first investigation, acoustic and kinematic data are collected and analyzed to test if pathological speakers always use a reduced vowel space compared to control subjects, and if they adopt different articulatory strategies depending on the axis of the speech gesture (vertical vs horizontal). In the second investigation, various articulatory metrics are used to better investigate the dimension and position of the acoustic vowel space, and if they change in Parkinson’s Disease subjects compared to controls. Results show that reduction takes place, but some subjects appear to compensate, widening their tongue gestures on the horizontal axis even though the lip gesture is not necessarily undershot. Nevertheless, metrics used in the second experiment do not allow to capture a reduction, even though, in line with results of the first experiment, they point to an asymmetry in the vowel space used depending on the axis considered

The Phonetics of Speech Production and Medical Research

The production of speech requires the interplay of a number of cognitive and motoric activities, which make it an interesting object of study from both a linguistic and a medical point of view. In this paper, we discuss, first, the features and domain of application of the most used technologies in linguistic research on speech production, focusing on those that have been applied to medicine. Second, we offer an insight into the main results that have been obtained so far in studying dysarthria in Italian Parkinson's Disease, as an example of the interdisciplinary, experimental research at the border between linguistics and medicine

Italian allora, French alors : functions, convergences and divergences

The functions, convergences, and divergences of Italian allora and French alors are analyzed in two Italian texts (the Novellino, in Old Italian, and Paso Doble, in Modern Italian) and their French translations. The discourse marker is used differently in the two languages, and the contrastive analysis allows us to better assess those differences, by explicitly quantifying the degree of correspondence, omissions, and non-literal translations. Furthermore, our work confirms the existence of functions which may be identified as more central or more peripheral within a certain configuration, and emphasizes the existence of cross-language preferences for a more/less rich set of forms for expressing a particular function. The polyfunctionality and context-boundness which characterize discourse markers in general are held responsible for differences in translation, thus motivating the several shades of meaning which distinguish Italian allora (with regard both to Old and Modern Italian) from French alors.En aquest article analitzem les funcions, les convergències i les divergències del connector italià allora i del francès alors a partir de dos textos italians (Novellino, en italià antic, i Paso Doble, en italià actual) i les corresponents traduccions franceses. Aquest marcador del discurs s'utilitza de manera diferent en les dues llengües com l'anàlisi contrastiva permet posar de manifest quantificant explícitament el grau de correspondència, omissions i traduccions no literals. Més encara, aquest treball confirma l'existència de funcions que poden ser identificades com a més centrals o més perifèriques dins d'una certa configuració i també manifesta l'existència de preferències interlingüístiques en un grup de formes més o menys ric per a expressar una funció particular. La polifuncionalitat i la dependència contextual que caracteritza els marcadors del discurs en general expliquen les diferències de traducció i, per tant, motiven els diferents matisos de significat que diferencien allora (tant respecte a l'italià antic com a l'actual) del marcador francès alors

Acquisizione delle vocali L2 dell’inglese americano da parte di apprendenti italofoni: un confronto tra training percettivo e training articolatorio con ecografo

La realizzazione del contrasto vocalico dell’inglese americano /ɑ-ʌ/ (es. cop-cup) da parte di apprendenti italofoni risulta essere particolarmente difficile in produzione, poiché le differenze fonetiche-fonologiche dei due sistemi linguistici e le regole di conversione grafema-fonema fanno sì che gli apprendenti italofoni realizzino il contrasto L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ utilizzando le vocali native /ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Lo scopo di questo studio è quello di osservare se un breve training possa aiutare gli apprendenti italofoni a migliorare la produzione delle vocali non native /ɑ-ʌ/. In particolare, si effettuerà un confronto tra un training percettivo e un training articolatorio, effettuato con l’utilizzo di un ecografo, al fine di osservare: 1) gli effetti di entrambi i training sulla realizzazione del contrasto L2 /ɑ-ʌ/; e 2) se il training articolatorio comporti risultati migliori rispetto a quello percettivo. Allo studio hanno partecipato nove studentesse salentine che sono state suddivise, in modo casuale, in tre gruppi: i) tre soggetti hanno preso parte al training percettivo della durata di un’ora (ES-P): ii) tre soggetti hanno partecipato al training articolatorio con ultrasuono della durata di un’ora (ES-US); iii) tre soggetti di controllo che non hanno effettuato alcun tipo di training (CS). I primi due gruppi (ES-P e ES-US) hanno ricevuto istruzioni sulle caratteristiche fonetiche sia delle vocali L2 /ɑ-ʌ/ che delle vocali della L1 /ɔ-a/ nonché sulle loro differenze utilizzando una rappresentazione sul piano cartesiano delle formanti F1 e F2. Successivamente, ciascun gruppo ha effettuato il training: i) i soggetti del gruppo ES-P hanno effettuato un test di identificazione basato sulla procedura High Variability Phonetic Training; ii) i soggetti del gruppo ES-US hanno effettuato un training articolatorio osservando sia un video relativo ai gesti linguali durante la produzione delle vocali /ɑ-ʌ/ da parte di un parlante nativo, sia una visualizzazione dinamica dei movimenti e della posizione della lingua, ottenuta grazie ad una sonda ecografica posizionata sotto il proprio mento. Le partecipanti sono state registrate sia prima che dopo l’addestramento (pre- e post-test) e le loro produzioni sono state analizzate acusticamente misurando il valore delle prime due formanti. I risultati mostrano che nel pre-test tutti le apprendenti realizzano L2-/ɑ-ʌ/ come L1-/ɔ-a/ rispettivamente. Al contrario, nel post-test sono soprattutto le apprendenti che hanno effettuato il training articolatorio riescono a realizzare le vocali L2 in modo differente sia rispetto a quelle realizzate nel pre-test sia rispetto alle vocali della L1. In particolare, un’apprendente produce entrambe le vocali non native in modo più accurato. Il training articolatorio sembra quindi essere più efficace del training percettivo.

Methods in prosody: A Romance language perspective

This book presents a collection of pioneering papers reflecting current methods in prosody research with a focus on Romance languages. The rapid expansion of the field of prosody research in the last decades has given rise to a proliferation of methods that has left little room for the critical assessment of these methods. The aim of this volume is to bridge this gap by embracing original contributions, in which experts in the field assess, reflect, and discuss different methods of data gathering and analysis. The book might thus be of interest to scholars and established researchers as well as to students and young academics who wish to explore the topic of prosody, an expanding and promising area of study

Methods in prosody: A Romance language perspective

This book presents a collection of pioneering papers reflecting current methods in prosody research with a focus on Romance languages. The rapid expansion of the field of prosody research in the last decades has given rise to a proliferation of methods that has left little room for the critical assessment of these methods. The aim of this volume is to bridge this gap by embracing original contributions, in which experts in the field assess, reflect, and discuss different methods of data gathering and analysis. The book might thus be of interest to scholars and established researchers as well as to students and young academics who wish to explore the topic of prosody, an expanding and promising area of study