Tracing the Phonetic Space of Prosodic Focus Marking

Abstract

Focus is known to be expressed by a wide range of phonetic cues but only a few studies have explicitly compared different phonetic variables within the same experiment. Therefore, we presented results from an analysis of 19 phonetic variables conducted on a data set of the German language that comprises the opposition of unaccented (background) vs. accented (in focus), as well as different focus types with the nuclear accent on the same syllable (broad, narrow, and contrastive focus). The phonetic variables are measures of the acoustic and articulographic signals of a target syllable. Overall, our results provide the highest number of reliable effects and largest effect sizes for accentuation (unaccented vs. accented), while the differentiation of focus types with accented target syllables (broad, narrow, and contrastive focus) are more subtle. The most important phonetic variables across all conditions are measures of the fundamental frequency. The articulatory variables and their corresponding acoustic formants reveal lower tongue positions for both vowels /o, a/, and larger lip openings for the vowel /a/ under increased prosodic prominence with the strongest effects for accentuation. While duration exhibits consistent mid-ranked results for both accentuation and the differentiation of focus types, measures related to intensity are particularly important for accentuation. Furthermore, voice quality and spectral tilt are affected by accentuation but also in the differentiation of focus types. Our results confirm that focus is realized via multiple phonetic cues. Additionally, the present analysis allows a comparison of the relative importance of different measures to better understand the phonetic space of focus marking.

The inverse relation of pre-nuclear and nuclear prominences in German

“…In categorical intonation analyses using transcription systems related to ToBI (Silverman et al, 1992;Beckman et al, 2005; see also other chapters in Jun, 2005), these F0 differences are reflected in lower proportions of downstepped H* accents (Baumann et al, 2007) and falling accents (Grice et al, 2017) in narrow focus compared to broad focus. Similar differences in the nuclear-accented word have also been attested between narrow and corrective focus: Compared to narrow focus, corrective focus is characterized by longer durations (Kügler, 2008), higher intensities (Breen et al, 2010), as well as larger F0 excursions, and higher F0 peaks with later temporal alignment (Baumann et al, 2006;Grice et al, 2017;Roessig et al, 2022).…”

“…It has been shown that nuclear-accented words are realized with different prosodic patterns depending on the focus condition. In particular, nuclear-accented words in narrow focus are longer than their counterparts occurring in broad focus (e.g., Baumann et al, 2006;Eady & Cooper, 1986;Kügler, 2008) and exhibit higher intensities (Breen et al, 2010; see also Roessig et al, 2022 although here the effect size of intensity was rather small). Additionally, higher F0 values, larger F0 excursions and later F0 peak alignments have been found for narrow focus compared to broad focus (Baumann et al, 2006;Breen et al, 2010;Eady & Cooper, 1986;Féry & Kügler, 2008;Grice et al, 2017;Roessig et al, 2022).…”

“…In particular, nuclear-accented words in narrow focus are longer than their counterparts occurring in broad focus (e.g., Baumann et al, 2006;Eady & Cooper, 1986;Kügler, 2008) and exhibit higher intensities (Breen et al, 2010; see also Roessig et al, 2022 although here the effect size of intensity was rather small). Additionally, higher F0 values, larger F0 excursions and later F0 peak alignments have been found for narrow focus compared to broad focus (Baumann et al, 2006;Breen et al, 2010;Eady & Cooper, 1986;Féry & Kügler, 2008;Grice et al, 2017;Roessig et al, 2022). In categorical intonation analyses using transcription systems related to ToBI (Silverman et al, 1992;Beckman et al, 2005; see also other chapters in Jun, 2005), these F0 differences are reflected in lower proportions of downstepped H* accents (Baumann et al, 2007) and falling accents (Grice et al, 2017) in narrow focus compared to broad focus.…”

Beyond binary gender: creaky voice, gender, and the variationist enterprise

“…Due to space constraints, we do not discuss here the findings for prosodic factors, except to note that they align with the prior literature: creak is significantly more likely in syllables that are unaccented (Roessig, Winter, & Mücke, 2022:4), onsetless IP-initially (Dilley et al, 1996:423; Garellek, 2014:106), IP-final (Abdelli-Beruh et al, 2014:187; Podesva, 2013:431), and in IPs ending in a low-falling (L-L%) or low-rising (L-H%) tone (Redi & Shattuck-Hufnagel, 2001:426). The full best-fit model is presented in the Appendix.…”

Compensatory mechanisms enables intelligibility in prodromal Parkinson’s disease

“…Speakers produced sentences, such as "Die Oma hat der Mila gewunken" (The grandma waved at Mila.). The focused element of the analysis was the first syllable from each of the ten girl names (Table S1), which were produced in three different focus conditions that reflect different degrees of prominence, ranging from low to high prominence on the name 15,16 . Tongue body movements refer to the production of the vowels (i, e, a, o, u), tongue tip movements to the production of the alveolar consonant /l/ and lower lip movements to the production of the labial consonant /m/.…”