No description available.

This work concerns how information structure is signalled prosodically in English, that is, how prosodic prominence and phrasing are used to indicate the salience and organisation of information in relation to a discourse model. It has been standardly held that information structure is primarily signalled by the distribution of pitch accents within syntax structure, as well as intonation event type. However, we argue that these claims underestimate the importance, and richness, of metrical prosodic structure and its role in signalling information structure. We advance a new theory, that information structure is a strong constraint on the mapping of words onto metrical prosodic structure. We show that focus (kontrast) aligns with nuclear prominence, while other accents are not usually directly 'meaningful'. Information units (theme/rheme) try to align with prosodic phrases. This mapping is probabilistic, so it is also influenced by lexical and syntactic effects, as well as rhythmical constraints and other features including emphasis. Rather than being directly signalled by the prosody, the likelihood of each information structure interpretation is mediated by all these properties. We demonstrate that this theory resolves problematic facts about accent distribution in earlier accounts and makes syntactic focus projection rules unnecessary. Previous theories have claimed that contrastive accents are marked by a categorically distinct accent type to other focal accents (e.g. L+H* v H*). We show this distinction in fact involves two separate semantic properties: contrastiveness and theme/rheme status. Contrastiveness is marked by increased prominence in general. Themes are distinguished from rhemes by relative prominence, i.e. the rheme kontrast aligns with nuclear prominence at the level of phrasing that includes both theme and rheme units. In a series of production and perception experiments, we directly test our theory against previous accounts, showing that the only consistent cue to the distinction between theme and rheme nuclear accents is relative pitch height. This height difference accords with our understanding of the marking of nuclear prominence: theme peaks are only lower than rheme peaks in rheme-theme order, consistent with post-nuclear lowering; in theme-rheme order, the last of equal peaks is perceived as nuclear. The rest of the thesis involves analysis of a portion of the Switchboard corpus which we have annotated with substantial new layers of semantic (kontrast) and prosodic features, which are described. This work is an essentially novel approach to testing discourse semantics theories in speech. Using multiple regression analysis, we demonstrate distributional properties of the corpus consistent with our claims. Plain and nuclear accents are best distinguished by phrasal features, showing the strong constraint of phrase structure on the perception of prominence. Nuclear accents can be reliably predicted by semantic/syntactic features, particularly kontrast, while other accents cannot. Plain accents can only be identified well by acoustic features, showing their appearance is linked to rhythmical and low-level semantic features. We further show that kontrast is not only more likely in nuclear position, but also if a word is more structurally or acoustically prominent than expected given its syntactic/information status properties. Consistent with our claim that nuclear accents are distinctive, we show that pre-, post- and nuclear accents have different acoustic profiles; and that the acoustic correlates of increased prominence vary by accent type, i.e. pre-nuclear or nuclear. Finally, we demonstrate the efficacy of our theory compared to previous accounts using examples from the corpus.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND HUMANITIES. / Bibliography: leaves 246-253. / by Janet Breckenridge Pierrehumbert. / Ph.D.

Typically, most native speakers of Japanese, who have been taught English in Japan, have had limited exposure to prosodic features of English. Consequently, their ability to understand the meaning of different intonation patterns is limited as well. Though it is generally accepted that intonation plays a crucial role in English communication, comprehensive pedagogical materials for teaching English intonation to native speakers of Japanese are not widely available or used in Japan. This is, in part, due to the complexity of English prosodic features and their abstractness. A better understanding of these barriers requires that the extent and the nature of native speakers of Japanese' understanding of English intonation be explored. The scope of this study is restricted to the examination of the following questions: (1) How well, compared with native speakers of English, can Japanese adult learners comprehend intonation patterns of English? (2) Are there any patterns in their misinterpretations of test sentences, according to three types of errors: paraphrase, categorization, or attitudinal judgments? (3) Can Japanese learners who comprehend one variation of intonation also interpret correctly the same sentence with the contrastive variation of intonation? Seventy-four native speakers of Japanese and thirty-one native speakers of English (control group) listened to twenty pairs of sentences presented with contrastive intonation. For each sentence they were asked to choose one of three different interpretations. Their responses were evaluated, at a 0.05 level of significance, using statistical tests of hypothesis (t and chi-square), and measures of correlation (r, phi and Cramers' s V). Major findings of this study are (1) the Japanese students had more difficulty with comprehending English intonation than the American students; (2) the Japanese students seemed to lack know ledge of grammar-intonation relationships; (3) they were able to understand attitudinal judgment intonation as well as native speakers.

published_or_final_version / Linguistics / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

This is a psychoacoustic study investigating experimentally the role of intonation as indicative of the human phenomenon of emotion in both Arabic and English. Itstudies both the acoustic properties of emotion in speech and their impact on intonational contours.Utterances representing five emotions (anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutral) in both the declarative and interrogative modes were collected from the speech of eight professional actors (4 Arabic, and 4 English) as they performed roles in movies and drama series. Two types of judges were used: viewers and listeners. The former watched the clips carrying the utterances and identified their emotional content. Their responses determined which utterances were included in the acoustic analysis. The listeners listened only to the utterances chosen by the viewers, and their responses were used to determine the acoustic clues for emotions. The acoustic analysis involved measuring the parameters of fundamental frequency (FO), intensity, and duration of four units of analysis: utterance as a whole unit, the initial and the final syllables of the utterance, and the syllable with the highest FO value (the peak).The ANOVA statistical test was run on the acoustic data. The listeners' responses were used in the Kappa test to determine their emotion recognition accuracy.The results showed that no single parameter can be taken as the sole marker or clue to a certain emotion. Rather, the expression of emotion is viewed as a complicated process involving the three parameters combined. Profiles for each emotion involving the levels of the three parameters at both the utterance and syllable levels are provided. The data analysis did not show emotion to have an impact on international contours. The KAPPA test showed a high degree of emotion recognition accuracy in both languages. The comparison of Arabic and English showed differences in the three parameters between the two languages. The most remarkable feature distinguishing the people of the two languages speech is intensity, with Arabic speakers showing higher decibel levels. / Department of English

This dissertation investigates articulatory characteristics of English /I/ in child speech. The study is primarily based on experimental data collected using ultrasound imaging techniques from eight English children ages 3;11 to 5;9. Replicating previous articulatory studies of syllable-based allophones of /I/ in adult speech production, the articulatory components of III in child speech production are analyzed for the static information and relative timing between tongue movements. Secondarily, the acoustic analysis of this data and its perception judgments by adults are presented.' One of the major findings of this study is that children at these ages produce /I/ using different spatial and temporal coordination than adult speech production, although some children produce /I/ more similar to adult /I/ in terms of articulatory organization. Further, the findings are addressed in relation to speech motor development, and hypotheses are tested to see which motor developmental process(es) (differentiation, integration, refinement) can describe the acquisition of /I/. The ultrasound results of the tongue movements in children's /I/ indicate that all general motor developmental processes are active in these children, and the spatial and temporal coordination of the articulatory gestures of /I/ is rather simplified or modified, and needs to be further refined. I argue that the tendency toward late acquisition of /I/ is due directly to the articulatory complexity of its spatial and temporal characteristics. This work contributes much-needeid empirical data of the articulatory characteristics of /I/ to both language acquisition and speech sciences and constitutes a novel application of ultrasound imaging to child speech research. Organization of this dissertation is as follows. Subsequent to the overall introduction of the study in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 presents the empirical background and hypotheses for the study. It reviews speech and developmental studies in production and perception conducted by other researchers, and proposes empirical questions. Chapter 3 provides the methodology for the study. It introduces ultrasound techniques and experiment design and procedure. Chapter 4 presents the results of the spatial characteristics of the children's /I/ in terms of number of gestures, tongue shape, constriction location, and allophonic variation with respect to different syllable positions. Chapter 5 discusses the results of the temporal characteristics of the children's /I/ gestures. Inter-gestural timing of allophones of /I/ is examined to determine whether timing distinguishes positional allophones in these children's speech. Chapter 6 provides post-experiment perception judgments made by adults, and acoustic analysis of samples of tokens used in the current study. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the results and discusses the implications of the dissertation. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Thesis. 1975. Ph.D.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics. / Bibliography: leaves 318-319. / Ph.D.

The purpose of this project is to address the need from helping English learners to improve their oral expression. The research mainly focuses on oral expression stategies with which students can overcome their fear of speaking in public and be better understood in society. Sample curriculum/lesson plans included.