The theory proposed in this thesis, Phonological Pitch, concerns the representation and behavior of the tone feature. It is a formally simple phonological theory constrained by a set of explicit extragrammatical principles. Phonological Pitch contains two major grammatical mechanisms. First, tone is represented with a single multivalued feature (Pitch) whose value can range from 1 to n, where n is a language-specific number with no universal upper limit. Second, the Contiguity Hypothesis states that tone groups in rules must always form contiguous sets, though these groups can vary from rule to rule. Phonological Pitch can be so simple because the power of the grammatical theory is constrained with independently necessary extragrammatical factors. Specifically, limits on the number of tone levels arise from learnability and perceptual constraints, which can be precisely formalized, that also play a role in nonlinguistic domains. Similarly, the Contiguity Hypothesis is derived from psychoacoustic constraints on discriminating between acoustically similar pitches. Other perceptual and physiological constraints explain patterns in the typology of contour tones and in the interactions of tone with other features. The empirical support for Phonological Pitch includes the following. First, languages are attested with as many as five distinct tone levels, and the number of languages with n tone levels gradually decreases as n increases, rather than dropping off abruptly at some point. An analysis using learnability and perceptual constraints can explain this gradual drop better than a universal grammatical upper limit. Second, tone rules can transpose sets of tones up or down by a fixed interval, a fact which is easier to formalize with a single multivalued feature than with a set of binary features. Third, tone groups do not form universal natural classes nor groups with noncontiguous tones, as other tone theories predict. Fourth, tone interacts not only with laryngeal features like voicing, but also with nonlaryngeal features like vowel height, and both the existence and relative rarity of tone-vowel height interactions imply that understanding tone interactions requires reference to extragrammatical physiological factors.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:33Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_luciana_virginia.pdf: 7741794 bytes, checksum: f8b55b78388efdb6d313b4e14b4369cf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-05-04 / For some peoples, the act of reading is seem easy and pleasant for others is a sacrifice without favorable prospects. School practices often do not prepare the student to be a proficient reader, but to perform a ritual of the curriculum of Portuguese Language. The read result of organized thought, prior knowledge and shared in the interactive action to which they add the linguistic-prosodic features (stretches, tones, change the pace and the time of the voice) and (repetition, pausing, hesitation and interruption). This research is a qualitative analysis of reading shared between teacher and student. It is based on discourse analysis, taking as its starting point the Interactional Theory of Intonation (TIE) of Brazil (1985), who realizes that the clues provided by the reader / listener / author / text are constitutive of meaning and tone choices made by persons, aid in the construction of meaning in spoken language and this sense is directly linked to the understanding of written text. When there is constructionof meaning in oral language, has been a reflection of deconstruction in the writing process. The corpus for this research consists of reading from two different text types: a chronic Discovery (1991), written by Luis Fernando Verissimo, and the poem Sobradinho, of the authors Sa e Guarabira (1973). Two criteria were established for the choice of texts. First, because the chronic and the poem are the object of study covered in the syllabus of classes of the 7th year of fundamental education. Second, because the chronic kind, has a captivating episode, the plot involves a series of actions, with brief and reflective approach, with digressions, comments or notes essay. And the poem, because it has characteristics like melody, rhythm and rhyme, producing harmony, moving between the syllables and unstressed syllables. It was also evidenced the distinct choices of standard intonation, as well as words prominence and impact of those choices in the comprehensive analysis of text. It was noticed that the pause, repetition, hesitation, stretching, exchanges and deletions of words change the meaning of understanding, and concluded that the language resources and para play an essential role in the construction of meaning of text. And when the teacher does not make use of these prosodic strategies as tools in the interactive process, makes the construction of meaning of text. / O ato de ler, para alguns, parece fácil e agradável, para outros representa um sacrifício sem perspectivas favoráveis. Nas práticas escolares, muitas vezes, não se prepara o aluno para ser um leitor proficiente, mas para cumprir um ritual da grade curricular de Língua Portuguesa. A leitura resulta do pensamento organizado, conhecimento prévio e partilhado na ação interativa ao qual se somam os recursos lingüísticos - prosódicos (alongamentos, entonações, alteração no ritmo e na altura da voz) e paralinguísticos (a repetição, a pausa, a hesitação e a interrupção). Esta pesquisa é uma análise qualitativa de leitura partilhada entre professor e aluno. Fundamenta-se na Análise do Discurso, tendo como ponto de partida a Teoria Interacional da Entonação (TIE) de Brazil (1985), que compreende que as pistas fornecidas pelo leitor/ ouvinte/ autor/ texto são constitutivas de sentido e que as escolhas tonais, feitas pelos interactantes, auxiliam na construção de sentido de texto oral, e este sentido está diretamente ligado à compreensão de texto escrito. Quando não há construção de sentido na oralidade, tem-se o reflexo da desconstrução no processo da escrita, o aluno lê, formando hipóteses de palavras que não estão no texto, estas hipóteses, por sua vez, interferem na resposta da análise compreensiva de texto escrito. O corpus para esta pesquisa é constituído a partir da leitura de dois gêneros textuais diferentes: a crônica A Descoberta (1991), escrita por Luis Fernando Veríssimo, e o poema Sobradinho, dos autores Sá e Guarabira (1973). Dois critérios foram estabelecidos para a escolha dos textos. Primeiro, porque a crônica e o poema são objeto de estudo contemplados no conteúdo programático de turmas do 7º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Segundo, porque o gênero crônica conta um episódio cativante, cuja trama envolve uma sucessão de ações, com abordagem breve e reflexiva, havendo digressões, comentários ou apontamentos dissertativos. Enquanto o poema apresenta características melódicas, ritmo e rima, produzindo harmonia, movimentação entre as sílabas átonas e tônicas. Foram verificadas escolhas distintas do padrão entoacional, bem como palavras com proeminência, e a repercussão dessas escolhas na análise compreensiva de texto. Percebeu-se que a pausa, a repetição, a hesitação, o alongamento, as trocas e supressões de palavras alteram o sentido da compreensão, e concluiu-se que os recursos linguísticos e paralinguísticos desempenham papel essencial na construção de sentido de texto. E quando o professor não faz uso destas estratégias prosódicas como ferramentas no processo interativo, dificulta a construção de sentido de texto.

With commercial availability of non-real and real-time spectrum analyzers, the speech-language pathologist has the means to objectively extract and measure pitch taken from speech samples. Though both types of spectrum analyzers provide the clinician with viable methods of measuring fundamental frequency and frequency range values, pitch extraction using real time allows for greater efficiency in acoustic measurements. The Kay Elemetrics Visi-Pitch is one such real-time spectrum analyzer that is less expensive and more accessible than other real time speech science hardware. The purpose of this study was to investigate the capability of a computerized Visi-Pitch to reflect elevation of fundamental frequency and expansion of frequency range by female adults.

Prosody is the flow of speech created by controlling elements such as pitch, rate, loudness, and stress (Tiffany and Carrell, 1977). Prosody is vital to intelligibility of speech and also communicates meaning. Despite the importance of prosody, however, few tests for the adequacy of prosodic ability in young children have been published (Koike and Asp, 1981a). To remedy this paucity of tools, Koike and Asp published the Tennessee Test of Rhythm and Intonation Patterns (T-TRIP). The clinical usefulness of the T-TRIP has been limited by a lack of normative data against which to compare individual children's performance. The purpose of this study was to collect normative data on the T-TRIP scores of normal four and six-year-olds. The question this study asked was: What are the means and standard deviations of T-TRIP scores from the samples of four and six-year-olds? A secondary question was: Are differences between the means of the two age groups statistically significant?

For people without speech, voice output communication aids are an assistive technology––but can also be restrictive: whilst Text-To-Speech synthesis can say anything, it affords little choice of how this is spoken. An absence of nuanced tone of voice can inhibit social interaction. This research explores this profound but relatively overlooked issue in augmentative and alternative communication through the lens––with the sensibilities and skills––of interaction design. Tone of voice is such an elusive and intangible quality: difficult for even phoneticians to define, let alone AAC users and carers to discuss in the context of their everyday lives. Therefore the activities of design exploration and design practice have been employed to visualise tone of voice, in order to catalyse new conversations, through two original research projects: Six Speaking Chairs, curated with Andrew Cook, is a collection of interactive artefacts that illustrate alternative models of tone of voice developed by academics and practitioners as diverse as sociolinguists and playwrights;Speech Hedge, created with the assistance of Ryan McLeod, is a visualisation of how someone might interact with nuanced tone of voice using a conventional communication aid in combination with an interface on a smart phone. Audience responses to each project have illuminated the perspectives from which laypeople conceive of tone of voice, challenging the conventional emotional model that dominates speech technology in favour of something more complex and heterogeneous. In order to reconcile such complexity with simplicity of use, design principles have been distilled that could inspire future user interfaces but also inform further research. This research has been published and presented within different academic fields, including design research, interaction design and augmentative and alternative communication.

This study investigated whether East Asian learners of English (n=8) studying in the US acquired more accurate intonation patterns (compared to native-speaker norms) after receiving five weeks of tutoring focusing on four basic intonation patterns (definite statements, wh-questions, yes/no questions, and tag questions) and using oral reading as the primary practice technique. The study also assessed the students' affective reaction to the teaching method through interviews. The study found that the learners significantly improved their intonational accuracy (based on the judgments of three native speakers who listened to single-sentence recordings [n=868] from questionnaires, exit interviews, and pre- and post-tests) and that they were generally amenable to the teaching technique.

Orientador: Charlotte Marie Chambelland Galves / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T18:18:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernandes_FlavianeRomani_D.pdf: 14839262 bytes, checksum: c392914eaa58b1175a0db11bab76cde4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: O presente trabalho, desenvolvido no âmbito da interface sintaxefonologia, consiste num estudo comparativo das construções de focalização em português brasileiro (doravante, PB) e em português europeu (doravante, PE) na expressão do foco informacional do elemento 'sujeito¿. A hipótese que buscamos confirmar ou infirmar neste estudo é a de que as diferentes formas de expressão do foco informacional do sujeito realizadas em PB e PE, além de estarem relacionadas a questões de natureza sintática, como à fixação do parâmetro prodrop, como afirmam Nespor & Guasti (2002) para as línguas em geral, também estão relacionadas a questões de natureza prosódica, como, por exemplo, o peso fonológico dos constituintes nas sentenças. Os resultados alcançados nesta tese mostram que tanto em PE, como em PB, restrições de peso fonológico atuam na escolha por determinada forma de focalização informacional do sujeito. Todavia, ainda mostram que, em PE, requisitos fonológicos relacionados ao alinhamento da proeminência do elemento focalizado com a proeminência principal de sentença podem também ser satisfeitos através do reordenamento de constituintes ou do uso de estruturas pseudoclivadas, por exemplo. Diferentemente do PE, o PB, dadas as particularidades de sua gramática, não se vale destes mesmos artifícios. Em PB, ocorre preferencialmente o uso de sentenças na ordem SV(O) com o sujeito portando a proeminência principal da sentença ou o uso de sentenças clivadas e clivadas invertidas. Quanto à primeira estratégia de focalização, ainda que o PE também possa se utilizar dela, nossos resultados indicam que as duas variedades de português apresentam diferenças quanto à posição sintática ocupada pelo sujeito focalizado. Enquanto este elemento se encontra na posição de especificador de TP em PE, em PB, ele se encontra fora de TP. Tal afirmação encontra respaldo na estrutura entoacional diferente associada a este tipo de sentença nas duas variedades / Abstract: Taking into account the syntaxphonology interface, this thesis compares subject focalization constructions in Brazilian Portuguese (henceforth, BP) and European Portuguese (henceforth, BP). This study aimed to confirm or infirm the hypothesis that the di erences between BP and EP derive from prosodic aspects of sentences, e.g., the phonologicalweightofconstituents,asidefromsyntacticpropertiesof thetwo languages, e.g., the nu subject parameter se ing (cf. Nespor & Guasti, 2002). Our results show that phonological weight constrains play an important role in both Portuguese varieties.Furthermore, our results also indicate that the phonologicalrequirementofalignment betweenthefocusprominenceand the sentence principal prominence may be satisfied in EP, for example, through reordering of constituents or pseudoclefts sentences. Due to particularities of BP grammar, these strategies are not available in BP. In this language, two solutions are available: (i) the preverbal subject ca ies the sentence principal prominence; and ( ) the use of cleft sentences and inversecleft sentences. Although strategy (i) is also used in EP, our results reveal that, in SV(O) sentences with focalized subject, the subject occupies di erent syntactical positions in the two varieties. Whereas the focalized subject occupies the TP specifier position in EP, in BP, this same element is out of TP.Evidence for this claim is provided by the di erent intonational structure type associated with this kind of sentences in the two languages / Doutorado / Doutor em Linguística

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Carla_confrontada.pdf: 967904 bytes, checksum: c3ddee6508b5c47e4d3217f528a70764 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-07-01 / The telemarketing sector is in frank expansion in Brasil, and for many it represents the initial opportunity for formal employment. In active telemarketing, the operator calls the customer whereas in receptive telemarketing the call is made by the customer. Since there is no face to face interaction performance of the operator, in both modalities, is solely dependent on his or her verbal communication skills. Thus, their voice is probably the most important component for success. For good communication there must be variations in voice pitch, loudness, speed and intonation, which are essential for good prosody. However, there are relatively few studies examining the subject of intonation in telemarketing. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to characterize the intonation profile of telemarketing operators, as well as to identify the intonation pattern more widely accepted by the customers of a cellular telephony company. For this, a questionnaire was applied to 212 customers and an analysis of the intonation of 40 telemarketing operators conducted using Brazil´s Interactive Theory of Intonation. 50 customers were also asked to listen to audio recordings containing the most frequent intonation patterns and requested to identify the most pleasant ones. Differences in customer service were observed between the two modalities of telemarketing (active or receptive), especially by younger customers (20-30 year olds). Of the 40 discourses evaluated, the most recurrent intonation pattern was the rise pattern both in the active and receptive telemarketing modalities. In active telemarketing, however, the second most prevalent pattern was the fall pattern, whereas in the receptive modality it was the fall-rise pattern. Based on the opinion of the 100 customers that listened to the recordings, it may be concluded that regardless of the type of telemarketing, the rise and fall patterns were considered more natural, in contrast to the fall-rise, pattern which was perceived as exagerated or caricatured. In active telemarmarketing the fall pattern was more widely accepted whereas the rise pattern was better accepted in receptive telemarketing. In addition, the rise and fall pattern was more positively evaluated by male customers. Thus, it may be concluded that, regardless of the type of telemarketing, it is necessary for the company to study the profile of its customers in order for its operators to use the most adequate voice intonation / O setor de telemarketing encontra-se em expansão no Brasil e surge como uma primeira oportunidade de emprego formal. No telemarketing ativo, o papel do teleoperador é o contato direto com o cliente é ele quem faz a ligação, enquanto que, no receptivo, ele recebe a ligação. Neste cenário, a voz torna-se uma ferramenta de trabalho essencial, pois grande parte do desempenho do teleoperador relaciona-se diretamente à comunicação verbal. A voz necessita, para uma boa comunicação, variações de pitch, loudness, velocidade de fala, entoação. Esses parâmetros estão relacionados à prosódia. A literatura apresenta poucos estudos que contemplam a entoação no telemarketing. O presente estudo teve como objetivo caracterizar o perfil entoacional do operador de telemarketing, assim como identificar o tipo de padrão entoacional mais aceito pelos clientes de operadoras de telefonia celular. Para tanto, foi aplicado um questionário a 212 clientes de empresas de telefonia celular, realizado um estudo da entoação de 40 teleoperadores com base na Teoria Interacional da Entoação, desenvolvida por David Brazil, e apresentadas, a 100 clientes, gravações dos padrões mais recorrentes para que identificassem os mais aceitos. Os resultados mais representativos foram: os clientes percebem diferenças entre as formas de atendimento do telemarketing ativo do receptivo, principalmente, os de faixa etária mais jovem (20 a 30 anos); foi identificado como padrão mais recorrente, entre as 40 falas transcritas, o tom ascendente, tanto no telemarketing ativo quanto no receptivo. Contudo, no telemarketing ativo, o segundo padrão mais recorrente foi o descendente, e no telemarketing receptivo, foi o descendente-ascendente. De acordo com a avaliação de 100 clientes, os quais escutaram gravações de vozes de teleoperadores, os tons ascendentes e descendentes, independente do tipo de telemarketing, foram considerados naturais, e o tom descendente-ascendente foi considerado exagerado ou caricato. No telemarketing ativo, o padrão descendente foi mais aceito, e no telemarketing receptivo, os tons ascendentes. O padrão descendente-ascendente teve uma avaliação mais positiva pelos clientes do sexo masculino. Dessa forma, podemos concluir que é necessário conhecer o perfil do cliente que irá utilizar os serviços de telemarketing da empresa, seja ele receptivo ou ativo, para que o operador possa adequar a entoação à forma mais agradável ao cliente

Orientador: Plinio Almeida Barbosa / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-21T08:19:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lucente_Luciana_D.pdf: 6663527 bytes, checksum: 1365c841142241927f330547bbf1f8ff (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Esta tese explora a relação entre padrões entoacionais ritmo e discurso de acordo com o programa de investigação dos sistemas dinâmicos. O estudo dessas relações foram feitas tendo como base o Modelo Dinâmico do Ritmo da Fala, proposto por Barbosa (2006), o Sistema DaTo de notação entoacional, proposto por Lucente (2008) e o Modelo Computacional da Estrutura do Discurso, proposto por Grosz & Sidner (1986). O Modelo de Dinâmico do Ritmo sugere que o ritmo da fala seja resultado da ação de dois osciladores - um acentual e outro silábico - que ao receberem na entrada do sistema informações de níveis lingüísticos superiores e de uma pauta gestual, geram a duração gestual na saída. A hipótese desta tese é que, paralelamente a esses osciladores, um oscilador glotal possa agir controlando os padrões entoacionais da fala. Os padrões, ou ciclos entoacionais, em que se organiza a entoação do PB emergem quando relacionados à segmentação de trechos de discurso em modalidade espontânea. Para cada trecho de fala classificado como espontâneo de acordo com um critério proposto nesta tese, o discurso é segmentado no sistema DaTo em unidades linguisticamente estruturadas, que contém os propósitos de comunicar e atrair atenção. Cada um destes segmentos do discurso se alinham a um padrão entoacional iniciado por um contorno entoacional ascendente (LH ou >LH) e finalizado por um contorno descendente (LHL) ou por um nível de fronteira baixo (L). Alinhado a este padrão formado entre entoação e discurso está também o ritmo. Com o acréscimo de uma camada no sistema DaTo para a segmentação dos enunciados em grupos acentuais pôde-se observar o alinhamento entre a segmentação dos grupos acentuais e a notação dos contornos entoacionais coincidindo com fronteiras das unidades discursivas. A observação do alinhamento entre entoação, ritmo e discurso tendo como atratores os grupos acentuais possibilitou a proposta de inserção de um oscilador glotal ao Modelo Dinâmico do Ritmo / Abstract: This thesis explores the relationship between intonational patterns and its relationship with speech rhythm and discourse, according to the dynamic systems research program. The study of these relationships were based on Barbosa's (2006) Dynamic Model of Speech Rhythm; on DaTo intonational annotation system proposed by Lucente (2008); and on the Computational Model of the Structure of Discourse, proposed by Grosz & Sidner (1986). The Dynamic Model of Rhythm suggests that speech rhythm is the result of two oscillators action - accentual and syllabic - which receive linguistic and gestural information as input, and give the gestural duration as output. This thesis hypothesis is that in addition to these oscillators, a glottal oscillator can act controlling the intonation patterns of speech. These patterns, or intonational cycles, which organize the BP intonation, emerge when related to the spontaneous discourse segmentation. For each discourse segment classified as spontaneous, according to a criteria proposed in this thesis, the speech is segmented into the DaTo system framework in linguistically structured units, which contains the purposes of communication and attention. Each of these segments is aligned to the speech intonation pattern delimitated by a rising contour (LH or> HL) at the beginning and by a falling contour (LHL), or a boundary level (L), at the end. The speech rhythm is also aligned to the pattern formed between intonation and discourse. By the inclusion of a new layer for the stress groups segmentation into DaTo system was possible to observe the alignment between stress group segmentation and intonational annotation coinciding with discourse segments boundaries. The alignment between intonation, rhythm and discourse, having the stress groups as attractors, allowed us to propose the insertion of a glottal oscillator into the Dynamic Model of Rhythm / Doutorado / Doutora em Linguística

O tema para pesquisa volta-se para a entoação observada na organização do discurso do portador de afasia, entendida como uma alteração no sistema linguístico proveniente de lesão cerebral que, dentre outros comprometimentos, faz com que o afásico sinta bastante dificuldade em transmitir emoção e significado pela fala, causando afastamento social. Com o objetivo de identificar recursos prosódicos no processo de (re)organização da linguagem por meio da identificação de pistas entoacionais na produção oral do sujeito afásico e de estratégias de organização entoacional através de pistas presentes na escrita deste sujeito a partir da Teoria Interacional da Entoação, de Brazil (1985), o estudo tem como foco favorecer a oralidade do sujeito afásico pela exploração de pistas entoacionais através do uso de diferentes gêneros textuais relacionados à prática diária do afásico. Para isso, foi realizado um estudo com um sujeito afásico, do sexo masculino, com dificuldades expressivas na escrita e na oralidade. Foram selecionados dez gêneros com características predominantes da oralidade e dez com características predominantes da escrita. Todas as atividades propostas com os gêneros da modalidade oral foram realizadas pelo sujeito, enquanto apenas sete atividades da modalidade escrita foram aceitas e executadas satisfatoriamente. Os resultados apontaram a necessidade de trabalho conjunto entre aspectos verbais, não verbais e multimodais na construção discursiva. As pistas entoacionais, tanto na oralidade quanto na escrita, serviram como facilitadoras do processo de organização da linguagem do sujeito afásico. A ênfase dada pela proeminência, sobretudo, pelo destaque à sílaba pré-tonica desempenhou forte componente constitutivo de sentido para a interação. Mesmo a hesitação, comum ao discurso do afásico, considerada uma estratégia para organização do pensamento, é marcada por pista entoacional relacionada à organização sintática. Logo, conclui-se que no processo de (re)organização da linguagem, a entoação desempenha um papel muito importante na construção de sentido na interação e facilita a compreensão do enunciado / The theme for research has been observed for the intonation in the organization of the speech in patients with aphasia, understood as a change in the linguistic system from brain damage, among other commitments, which makes the aphasic feel it very difficult to convey emotion and meaning by speech, causing social withdrawal. In order to identify prosodic features in the process of (re)organization of language by identifying intonation clues of speech in the oral production by the aphasic subject and the organization of intonation strategies through clues presented in the writing of that subject from the Interactional Theory of Intonation of Brazil (1985), the study focuses on promoting the speech of the aphasic subject by exploring intonation clues through the use of different text genres related to the daily practice of aphasic. For this reason, a study was conducted with an aphasic subject, male, with significant difficulties in writing and speaking skills. We selected ten species with predominant features of speech and ten with predominant features of writing. All the proposed activities on the mode of oral genres were performed by the subject, while only seven activities of the written form were accepted and performed satisfactorily. The results indicated the need of working together both the aspects of verbal and nonverbal multimodal and discursive construction. The intonation clues, both in the oral and in the writing, served as facilitators of the process of organizing language by the aphasic subject. The emphasis of the prominence, especially the emphasis on pretonic syllable, played strong constitutive meaning in interaction. Even the hesitation, which is common in the speech of the aphasic, is considered a strategy for organization of thought, and it is marked by intonation clue related to syntactic organization. Thus, we conclude that in the process of (re)organization of language, intonation plays an important role in the construction of meaning in the interaction and facilitates understanding the statement