Speech technologies such as text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) have recently generated much interest in the developed world as a user-interface medium to smartphones [1, 2]. However, it is also recognised that these technologies may potentially have a positive impact on the lives of those in the developing world, especially in Africa, by presenting an important medium for access to information where illiteracy and a lack of infrastructure play a limiting role [3, 4, 5, 6]. While these technologies continually experience important advances that keep extending their applicability to new and under-resourced languages, one particular area in need of further development is speech synthesis of African tone languages [7, 8]. The main objective of this work is acoustic modelling and synthesis of tone for an African tone,language: Yorùbá. We present an empirical investigation to establish the acoustic properties of tone in Yorùbá, and to evaluate resulting models integrated into a Hidden Markov model-based (HMMbased) TTS system. We show that in Yorùbá, which is considered a register tone language, the realisation of tone is not solely determined by pitch levels, but also inter-syllable and intra-syllable pitch dynamics. Furthermore, our experimental results indicate that utterance-wide pitch patterns are not only a result of cumulative local pitch changes (terracing), but do contain a significant gradual declination component. Lastly, models based on inter- and intra-syllable pitch dynamics using underlying linear pitch targets are shown to be relatively efficient and perceptually preferable to the current standard approach in statistical parametric speech synthesis employing HMM pitch models based on context-dependent phones. These findings support the applicability of the proposed models in under-resourced conditions. / PhD (Information Technology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Speech technologies such as text-to-speech synthesis (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) have recently generated much interest in the developed world as a user-interface medium to smartphones [1, 2]. However, it is also recognised that these technologies may potentially have a positive impact on the lives of those in the developing world, especially in Africa, by presenting an important medium for access to information where illiteracy and a lack of infrastructure play a limiting role [3, 4, 5, 6]. While these technologies continually experience important advances that keep extending their applicability to new and under-resourced languages, one particular area in need of further development is speech synthesis of African tone languages [7, 8]. The main objective of this work is acoustic modelling and synthesis of tone for an African tone,language: Yorùbá. We present an empirical investigation to establish the acoustic properties of tone in Yorùbá, and to evaluate resulting models integrated into a Hidden Markov model-based (HMMbased) TTS system. We show that in Yorùbá, which is considered a register tone language, the realisation of tone is not solely determined by pitch levels, but also inter-syllable and intra-syllable pitch dynamics. Furthermore, our experimental results indicate that utterance-wide pitch patterns are not only a result of cumulative local pitch changes (terracing), but do contain a significant gradual declination component. Lastly, models based on inter- and intra-syllable pitch dynamics using underlying linear pitch targets are shown to be relatively efficient and perceptually preferable to the current standard approach in statistical parametric speech synthesis employing HMM pitch models based on context-dependent phones. These findings support the applicability of the proposed models in under-resourced conditions. / PhD (Information Technology), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

Tone is a distinctive feature of the lexemes in tone languages. The information-structural category focus is usually marked by syntactic and morphological means in these languages, but sometimes also by intonation strategies. In intonation languages, focus is marked by pitch movements, which are also perceived as tone. The present article discusses prosodic focus marking in these two language types.

Teotepec Chatino is a Zapotecan language of the Otomanguean stock, spoken in the Southeastern Sierra Madre, in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. Although other varieties of the Chatino language family have been described - Panixtlahuaca (Pride, 1963; Pride and Pride, 2004), Yaitepec (Rasch, 2002), Quiahije (Cruz, E, 2004; Cruz, E. et al., 2008), Tataltepec (Pride and Pride, 1970; Pride, 1984), Zacatepec (Villard, 2008), Zenzontepec (Campbell, 2009; Carleton, 2000) - there are no previous descriptions of Teotepec Chatino. Among the many interesting features of Teotepec Chatino is an inventory of twelve lexical tones. These tones distinguish between lexical items and have grammatical func- tions. The basic word order is VSO, however the language exhibits the alternative orders of SVO and OVS. These orders have specific semantic and pragmatic functions. The language has aspectual prefixes and some derivational patterns. There is verbal and nominal com- pounding which plays an important role in the formation of complex concepts. Animate direct objects are optionally marked by 7įᴿ ‘to’. The presence or absence of this marker with nominal constituents encodes whether an object is alienably or inalienably possessed. Teotepec Chatino has a vigesimal number system - a common areal feature of other languages in the region. There is a complex set of motion verbs that encode spatial orientation and reference. There are several constructions that result in complex sentences. These include relative clauses, complement clauses, adverbial clauses and conjunctions. There are a number of interesting temporal adverbs that are used to define different time events. The description and analysis of these aspects of Teotepec Chatino is based on data gathered through elicitation and oral texts. This work is a preliminary sketch of the language and should not be considered exhaustive. / text

No description available.

Ce mémoire consiste à offre un survol des études neuropsychologiques et électrophysiologiques concernant l’interaction possible entre le traitement du langage et la musique. Le but principal est de déterminer les raisons possibles pour lesquelles des locuteurs d’une langue à tons auraient une meilleure capacité dans la perception du contraste du pitch en musique par rapport aux individus qui ont pour langue maternelle une langue à intonation. Dans un premier temps, nous discutons du traitement neuronal de la prosodie et de la musique, tentant de montrer le chevauchement du traitement cérébral des deux domaines. Ensuite, nous présentons des notions d’une langue tonale ainsi que le traitement neuronal des tons lexicaux. Après, nous discutons des effets de transfert de la capacité du traitement du pitch en linguistique et en musique, en nous focalisant sur l’influence de la connaissance native d’une langue tonale sur la perception musicale. Pour ce faire, l’encodage du pitch et la localisation hémisphérique du traitement des tons lexicaux et la musique serons discutés. / This thesis gives an overview of neuropsychological and electrophysiological studies about the possible interaction between the processing of language and music. Our main purpose is to examine the possible reasons for which tone language speakers have a better capacity in perceiving pitch contrast in music than native speakers of an intonational language. First, we discuss the neural processing of prosody and music, attempting to show an overlap between the two domains. Next, we present the concept of a tone langue and the neural processing of lexical tones. Afterwards, we discuss the transfer effects of the processing capacity of pitch in linguistic and music by focusing on the influence of a knowledge of a tone language on the musical perception. To do this, the encoding of pitch and the hemispheric specialization will be discussed.

As evidence of intimate music-language relations grow, a certain connection between the use of tone language and the ability of absolute pitch has been found. Genesis of absolute pitch has long been a controversial topic among scientists. While interest of learning the tone language Chinese increases, it is, from a pedagogical perspective, relevant and engaging to specifically study this connection. The purpose of this essay is to study a small group of young beginners in Chinese at close quarters. By implementing a pitch-based hearing test, their pronunciation skills in Chinese were compared with sense of pitch shown in the test. The findings point to complex interactions between several factors, and show for instance a significant importance of musical training and learning motivation. / Samtidigt som vetenskapliga bevis för en intim relation mellan musik och språk växer, har ett visst samband mellan användning av tonspråk och absolut gehör också upptäckts. Uppkomsten av absolut gehör har länge varit ett kontroversiellt forskningsämne. När intresset att lära sig tonspråket kinesiska ökar globalt, är det ur ett pedagogiskt perspektiv motiverat att studera just detta samband. Syftet med föreliggande uppsats är att på nära håll studera en liten grupp elever i nybörjarkinesiska. Genom ett gehörstest, baserat på förmågan att uppfatta tonhöjder, har dessa testresultat jämförts med de tidigare observerade uttalsförmågor hos eleverna. Studien pekar på komplexa interaktioner mellan många faktorer, och visar till exempel musikträning och studiemotivation som avgörande faktorer. / 提要：随着越来越多的研究证明音乐与语言之间的密切关系，也有证据显示声调语言的使用与绝对音高感之间有着一定的互动关系。绝对音高感的成因一直是一个科学上有争议的话题，如今，学习声调语言普通话的兴趣已是国际性，从教学的角度来看，这两者之间的互动关系是个值得研究的话题。 此研究对一小群中文初学者做了近距离的观察，并对她们进行了音高感的听力测试。通过比较测试数据和她们已表现的中文发音能力及敏感性，本文发现了多种因素之间的复杂关系，比如音乐培训以及学习积极性的关键性。

Cette étude introduit un nouvel outil d’évaluation des troubles liés à la perception et la mémoire de la musique pour les enfants âgés entre six et huit ans. La batterie d’évaluation proposée est une adaptation de la batterie de Montréal de l'évaluation de l’amusie (MBEA) afin qu’elle puisse être utilisée chez les enfants, et ce, peu importe leur langue maternelle et leur culture. Dans l'expérience 1, la batterie, qui évalue les composantes musicales suivantes : la tonalité, le contour, l’intervalle, le rythme ainsi que la mémoire incidente, a été administrée auprès de 258 enfants à Montréal et 91 à Pékin. Dans l'expérience 2, une version abrégée de la batterie a été administrée à 86 enfants à Montréal. Les deux versions ont démontré une sensibilité aux différences individuelles et à la formation musicale. Il ne semble pas y avoir une influence de l'apprentissage de la lecture et de l’écriture sur les performances, mais plutôt un effet de la culture. Effectivement, les enfants qui ont comme langue maternelle le Mandarin (une langue tonale) ont obtenu de meilleurs résultats aux tâches de discrimination liées à la composante mélodique en comparaison à leurs homologues canadiens. Pour les deux groupes d’enfants, ceux qui ont été identifiés comme potentiellement amusiques ont principalement, mais pas exclusivement, des difficultés à percevoir de fines variations de hauteurs. Le caractère prédominant du déficit lié au traitement mélodique est moins distinctif avec la version abrégée. Par ailleurs, les résultats suggèrent différentes trajectoires de développement pour le traitement de la mélodie, du rythme et de la mémoire. De ce fait, la version de la MBEA adaptée à l’enfant, renommée la batterie de Montréal d'évaluation du potentiel musical (MBEMP), est un nouvel outil qui permet d’identifier les troubles liés au traitement musical chez les enfants tout en permettant d'examiner le développement typique et atypique des habiletés musicales et leur relation présumée à d'autres fonctions cognitives. / The present study introduces a novel tool for the comprehensive assessment of musical disorders and potential in 6- to 8-year-old children. The tool is an adaptation of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) for use with children from a range of language and cultural backgrounds. In Experiment 1, the battery, comprising tests of memory and of scale, contour, interval and rhythm discrimination, was administered to 258 children in Montreal and 91 in Bejing. In Experiment 2, an abbreviated version of the battery was administered to 86 Montreal children. Both versions were sensitive to individual differences and to musical education. There was little apparent influence of literacy, but there was an effect of culture. Children who spoke Mandarin (a tone language) showed enhanced melodic pitch discrimination relative to their Canadian counterparts, who mostly spoke French (a non-tone language). In both cultures, children designated as amusic were impaired primarily but not exclusively in musical pitch processing. The results also suggest distinctive developmental trajectories for melody, rhythm and memory processing. Thus, the child version of the MBEA, which should be renamed the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Musical Potential (MBEMP), provides a means of identifying musical disorders in childhood as well as a means of examining the typical and atypical developmental course of musical abilities and their putative relation to other cognitive functions.

Gegenstand der Arbeit sind verschiedene Aspekte der Morphosyntax und Tonologie im Buli, einer in Ghana (Upper East Region nahe der Grenze zu Burkina Faso) gesprochenen Gursprache des Niger-Kongo-Phylums, die bisher nur unzureichend beschrieben wurde. Die grammatische Beschreibung gibt einen umfangreichen Einblick in das sprachliche System des Buli und umfasst Kapitel zu den folgenden Themen: Phonologie, Nominalklassensystem, Pronominalsystem, Komplexe Nominalphrasen und nominale Syntagmen, Verbsystem. Dies geschieht in erster Linie anhand des in Wiaga gesprochenen Buli, wird aber durch die Bezugnahme auf andere Dialekte sowie auf verwandte Gursprachen ergänzt, beispielsweise hinsichtlich der Bewertung tonaler Divergenzen in Nominalklassensuffixen oder in Assoziativkonstruktionen. Die autosegmental angelegte Tonstudie verfolgt keine theoretischen Ziele, sondern hat sich unmittelbar aus dem Bedarf einer adäquaten Beschreibung der synchronen Sprache ergeben, in der Ton sowohl in lexikalischer als auch in grammatischer Hinsicht ganz zentrale Aufgaben übernimmt. Dabei wurden neben regelmäßigen Ton–Sandhi-Erscheinungen (Tieftonausbreitung) auch interessante Phänomene an den Schnittstellen der Phonologie zur Syntax und zur Semantik-Pragmatik vorgefunden, z.B. die tonale Kongruenz bestimmter Verbformen mit der Diskursrolle des Subjekts (+/- Diskurspartizipant, d.h. 1./2. Person vs. 3. Person) oder das Vorkommen eines Grenztons an äußerungsfinalen Morphemen, zu denen auch die Klassensuffixe indefiniter Substantive und enklitische Objektpronomen am Verb gehören. Im Rahmen der morphosyntaktischen Analysen wurde unter anderem ein aus typologischer Sicht spannender nominaler Kompositionstyp identifiziert, der sich neben seinen strukturellen Eigenschaften auch durch eine spezifische possessive Semantik auszeichnet und vermutlich an der Entwicklung von attributiven (qualifizierenden) Adjektiven und eines von zwei Zahlwörtern für ‘eins’ beteiligt war. / This work deals with different aspects of the morphosyntax and tonology in Buli, a Gur language of the Niger-Congo-Phylum, which is spoken in Ghana (Upper East Region near the border to Burkina Faso) and has so far been described insufficiently. The grammatical description provides an extensive insight into the linguistic system of Buli and contains chapters concerning the following topics: phonology, noun class system, pronominal system, complex noun phrases and nominal syntagmata, and verb system. It is primarily based on the Buli variant spoken in Wiaga and supplemented by reference to other dialects as well as to related Gur languages, for instance with regard to tonal divergencies in noun class suffixes and in associative constructions. Following an autosegmental model, the tonal study does not aim at theoretic enhancement, but results directly from the need of an adequate description of the synchronic language in which tone plays an important role in lexicon and grammar. Besides regular Tone-Sandhi (Low tone spreading), interesting phenomena at the phonology/syntax interface as well as at the phonology/semantics-pragmatics interface were observed – e.g. some verb forms displaying tonal agreement with the discourse role of the subject (+/- discourse participant, i.e. 1st / 2nd vs. 3rd person) or the appearance of a boundary tone on utterance-final morphemes, including the noun class suffixes of indefinite nouns and the enclitic object pronouns at the verb. In the course of the morphosyntactic analysis, a typologically remarkable nominal compound type was identified that is distinguished by structural features as well as by specific possessive semantics and can be assumed to be involved in the development of attributive (qualifying) adjectives and one of two numerals with the meaning ‘one’.

Cette étude introduit un nouvel outil d’évaluation des troubles liés à la perception et la mémoire de la musique pour les enfants âgés entre six et huit ans. La batterie d’évaluation proposée est une adaptation de la batterie de Montréal de l'évaluation de l’amusie (MBEA) afin qu’elle puisse être utilisée chez les enfants, et ce, peu importe leur langue maternelle et leur culture. Dans l'expérience 1, la batterie, qui évalue les composantes musicales suivantes : la tonalité, le contour, l’intervalle, le rythme ainsi que la mémoire incidente, a été administrée auprès de 258 enfants à Montréal et 91 à Pékin. Dans l'expérience 2, une version abrégée de la batterie a été administrée à 86 enfants à Montréal. Les deux versions ont démontré une sensibilité aux différences individuelles et à la formation musicale. Il ne semble pas y avoir une influence de l'apprentissage de la lecture et de l’écriture sur les performances, mais plutôt un effet de la culture. Effectivement, les enfants qui ont comme langue maternelle le Mandarin (une langue tonale) ont obtenu de meilleurs résultats aux tâches de discrimination liées à la composante mélodique en comparaison à leurs homologues canadiens. Pour les deux groupes d’enfants, ceux qui ont été identifiés comme potentiellement amusiques ont principalement, mais pas exclusivement, des difficultés à percevoir de fines variations de hauteurs. Le caractère prédominant du déficit lié au traitement mélodique est moins distinctif avec la version abrégée. Par ailleurs, les résultats suggèrent différentes trajectoires de développement pour le traitement de la mélodie, du rythme et de la mémoire. De ce fait, la version de la MBEA adaptée à l’enfant, renommée la batterie de Montréal d'évaluation du potentiel musical (MBEMP), est un nouvel outil qui permet d’identifier les troubles liés au traitement musical chez les enfants tout en permettant d'examiner le développement typique et atypique des habiletés musicales et leur relation présumée à d'autres fonctions cognitives. / The present study introduces a novel tool for the comprehensive assessment of musical disorders and potential in 6- to 8-year-old children. The tool is an adaptation of the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Amusia (MBEA) for use with children from a range of language and cultural backgrounds. In Experiment 1, the battery, comprising tests of memory and of scale, contour, interval and rhythm discrimination, was administered to 258 children in Montreal and 91 in Bejing. In Experiment 2, an abbreviated version of the battery was administered to 86 Montreal children. Both versions were sensitive to individual differences and to musical education. There was little apparent influence of literacy, but there was an effect of culture. Children who spoke Mandarin (a tone language) showed enhanced melodic pitch discrimination relative to their Canadian counterparts, who mostly spoke French (a non-tone language). In both cultures, children designated as amusic were impaired primarily but not exclusively in musical pitch processing. The results also suggest distinctive developmental trajectories for melody, rhythm and memory processing. Thus, the child version of the MBEA, which should be renamed the Montreal Battery of Evaluation of Musical Potential (MBEMP), provides a means of identifying musical disorders in childhood as well as a means of examining the typical and atypical developmental course of musical abilities and their putative relation to other cognitive functions.