Interpreting Pitch Accents in Online Comprehension: H* vs. L+H*

Watson, Duáne G.; Tanenhaus, Michael K.; Gunlogson, Christine

doi:10.1080/03640210802138755

Cited by 133 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…For example, differences in semantic focus are associated with differences in pitch range in a wide variety of languages [e.g., Cooper et al, 1985;Xu and Xu, 2005;Féry and Kügler, 2008;Genzel and Kügler, 2010]. Furthermore, listeners have been shown to interpret pitch range differences in terms of distinct patterns of semantic reference or pragmatic intent [Hadding-Koch and Studdert-Kennedy, 1964;Studdert-Kennedy and Hadding-Koch, 1973;Nash and Mulac, 1980;Bartels and Kingston, 1994;Niebuhr, 2007b;Watson et al, 2008]. Evidence for pitch range as the phonetic basis of meaning contrasts comes from semantic judgment tasks, production studies, and eyetracking studies [Ward and Hirschberg, 1985;Hirschberg and Ward, 1992;Bartels and Kingston, 1994;Gussenhoven and Rietveld, 2000;Calhoun, 2006;Weber et al, 2006;Féry and Kügler, 2008;Watson et al, 2008].…”

Section: Pitch Range Variation In English Tonal Contrastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitch Range Variation in English Tonal Contrasts: Continuous or Categorical?

Dilley¹

2010

Phonetica

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The importance of pitch range variation for intonational meaning and theory is well known; however, whether pitch range is a phonetic dimension which is treated categorically in English remains unclear. To test this possibility, three intonation continua varying in pitch range were constructed which had endpoints with contrastive representations under autosegmental-metrical (AM) theory: H* vs. L+H*, H* with ‘peak delay’ vs. L*+H, and %H L* vs. L*. The prediction derived from AM theory was that the reproduction of continuous pitch range variation should show a discrete pattern reflecting a change in the phonological representation of tonal sequences and in the number of tonal targets across each continuum. Participants’ reproductions of each stimulus set showed continuous variation in pitch range, suggesting that pitch range is a gradient phonetic dimension in English conveying semantic contrast, similar to the formant space for vowels. Moreover, the gradience observed in productions across all parts of the pitch range suggests that contours within each series had the same number of tonal targets. The results support a version of AM theory in which rises and falls are usually comprised of two tonal targets, with strictly monotonic f₀ interpolation between them.

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Section: Pitch Range Variation In English Tonal Contrastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pitch Range Variation in English Tonal Contrasts: Continuous or Categorical?

Dilley¹

2010

Phonetica

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“…, 'RED violin') results in more fixations to an object of the same type as in the first instruction (e.g., 'violin') than to another red object (e.g., 'vase') displayed on the screen (Ito & Speer, 2008;Weber, Braun, & Crocker, 2006). Interestingly, listeners not only make use of pitch accent distribution (i.e., accentuation of referent or adjective) but also appear to be sensitive to pitch accent type: A contrastive pitch accent such as L + H* (high pitch on the stressed syllable preceded by a low tone which results in a steep rise to the peak) creates a strong bias towards contrastive referents, while H* signals both new and contrastive referents (Watson, Tanenhaus, & Gunlogson, 2008). Taken together, these results show that listeners use intonational contrast marking and the situational context (e.g.…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

Braun

Tagliapietra

2009

Language and Cognitive Processes

135

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Sentences with a contrastive intonation contour are usually produced when the speaker entertains alternatives to the accented words. However, such contrastive sentences are frequently produced without making the alternatives explicit for the listener. In two cross-modal associative priming experiments we tested in Dutch whether such contextual alternatives become available to listeners upon hearing a sentence with a contrastive intonation contour compared with a sentence with a non-contrastive one. The first experiment tested the recognition of contrastive associates (contextual alternatives to the sentence-final primes), the second one the recognition of non-contrastive associates (generic associates which are not alternatives). Results showed that contrastive associates were facilitated when the primes occurred in sentences with a contrastive intonation contour but not in sentences with a non-contrastive intonation. Non-contrastive associates were weakly facilitated independent of intonation. Possibly, contrastive contours trigger an accommodation mechanism by which listeners retrieve the contrast available for the speaker.

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“…Braun & Tagliapietra, 2010;Calhoun, 2012;Krahmer & Swerts, 2001;Watson et al, 2008). For example, Ladd and Morton (1997) showed that listeners could assign degree of emphasis in a gradient manner consistent with a continuum of F0 excursions that varied in the peak height between two rise-fall contours, which respectively represented a canonical H* accent and a L+H* accent.…”

Section: Contrastive Prosody: Categorical Distinction Despite Variantmentioning

confidence: 95%

Allophonic tunes of contrast: Lab and spontaneous speech lead to equivalent fixation responses in museum visitors

Ito

Turnbull

Speer³

2017

Laboratory Phonology

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Ito, K et al 2017 Allophonic tunes of contrast: Lab and spontaneous speech lead to equivalent fixation responses in museum visitors. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology 8(1): 6, pp. contours as well as data collected from a uniform participant group-college students. The present study tested visitors to a science museum, who better represent the general public, comparing lab and spontaneous speech to replicate the contrast-evoking effect of prominent pitch accent. Across two eye-tracking experiments where participants followed spoken instructions to decorate Christmas trees, spontaneous two-word [L+H* unaccented] contours led to faster eye-movements to contrastive ornament sets than [H* !H*] contours with no delay as compared to lab speech. The differences in the fixation functions were overall smaller than those in a previous study that used clear lab speech in richer contexts. Detailed acoustic analyses indicated that the lab speech tune types were distinguishable by any of several independent F0 measures on the adjective and by F0 slope. In contrast, no single phonetic measure on the spontaneous speech adjective distinguished between tune types, which were best classified according to independent noun-based measures. However, a non-linear c ombination of the adjective measures was shown to be equal to the noun measures in distinguishing between the [H* !H*] and [L+H* unaccented] tunes. The eye-movement data suggest that naïve listeners were comparably sensitive to both lab and spontaneous prosodic cues on the adjective and made anticipatory eye-movements accordingly.

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Interpreting Pitch Accents in Online Comprehension: H* vs. L+H*

Cited by 133 publications

References 28 publications

Pitch Range Variation in English Tonal Contrasts: Continuous or Categorical?

Pitch Range Variation in English Tonal Contrasts: Continuous or Categorical?

The role of contrastive intonation contours in the retrieval of contextual alternatives

Allophonic tunes of contrast: Lab and spontaneous speech lead to equivalent fixation responses in museum visitors

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