Accentuation and phrasing in Romance Occitan and French

Accentuation and phrasing in Romance: Occitan and French Rafèu Sichel‐Bazin 1, 2, Carolin Buthke 1, Trudel Meisenburg 1 1 Universität Osnabrück, 2 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) DFG‐Projekt Intonation im Sprachkontakt: Okzitanisch und Französisch 1

STRUCTURE 1. Project and data 2. Theoretical background 3. General basic contour: LHi. LH* 3. 1 Initial accents 3. 2 Pitch accents 4. Boundaries 4. 1 Continuation contours and hesitations 4. 1. 1 Continuation rise and sustained pitch 4. 1. 2 Continuation fall 4. 2 Utterance‐final contours 4. 2. 1 Upstepped last prenuclear rise 4. 2. 2 Delayed peak 5. Conclusion 2

1. PROJECT AND DATA • Project “Intonation in contact: Occitan and French” http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/File: Romance_20 c_en. png 3

1. PROJECT AND DATA • Project “Intonation in contact: Occitan and French” Occitan and French prosody, accentuation and phrasing – Occitan: word accent on the penultimate or ultimate – French: phrase final accent Northern (N‐) French: close to standard French Southern (S‐) French: in close contact to Occitan • Data Situations survey (Prieto 2001, http: //prosodia. upf. edu/atlesentonacio/) Neutral yes/no question: 2 a 1. You enter a shop where you never went before and you ask if they have mandarins. ‘Do you have mandarins? ’ Confirming yes/no question: 2 d 6. John has said that he’d come for dinner. You ask him to confirm it. ‘You will come for dinner, right? ’ 4

1. PROJECT AND DATA • Data Map task (http: //prosodia. upf. edu/atlasintonacion/) Summary of the fable “The North wind and the sun” (IPA 1999) 5

1. PROJECT AND DATA Corpus: speakers from La Cauna/Lacaune, Tolosa/Toulouse, Lille & Orléans 6

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND French • Post (2000): syntactic approach, lexical accents, deletion process • Di Cristo (2009): • Jun & Fougeron (2002), ~ Welby (2006): 7

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Occitan • Hualde (2003 a, 2004), Sichel‐Bazin (2009): Tonal movements on syllables that are not metrically strong initial or secondary accents (Hualde 2003 a) 8

3. GENERAL BASIC CONTOUR • in all 3 varieties LHi. LH* basic contour in Gallo-Romance intonation • Corresponding prosodic unit (accentual phrase, AP) – French: determined by final (and optionally initial) accent – Occitan: determined by lexical accent plus surrounding clitics = clitic group • APs are organized into Intonational Phrases (IPs) – prenuclear AP(s) vs. nuclear AP – boundary tone(s) 9

3. GENERAL BASIC CONTOUR ‘to move forward he folded up’ 10

3. 1 INITIAL ACCENTS • Tonal movements on syllables that are not metrically strong • Traditional “accent d’insistance” to signal emphasis (Carton et al 1976, Fónagy 1980, Astésano 2001) • Possible features: – Tonal rise (to variable height) – Onset consonant strengthening (under emphasis) – Intensity peak – Usually no lengthening • More frequent in cases of emphasis, but quite generalized today • Marking of left boundaries (in support of phrasing) – On initial syllables of first content word – Also possible on clitics 11

3. 1 INITIAL ACCENTS in Occitan ‘to move forward he folded up’ 12

3. 1 INITIAL ACCENTS: clash conditions • French: clash usually avoided • Occitan: clash situations possible (Hualde 2003 a) • Spanish – Initial rises possible in emphatic or didactic speech, clash said to be avoided – Hualde 2003 b, to appear: clash situations are marked, but accent correlates split up between syllables: SYLLABLE INITIAL = PRETONIC PITCH + ‐ INTENSITY + ‐ DURATION ‐ + 13

3. 1 INITIAL ACCENTS in French: clash conditions ‘he gets started SYLLABLE to heat up, chau- PITCH [ʃo -ffer up’ heat fe] + + INTENSITY +/‐ + DURATION ‐ + +/‐ ‐ Onset consonant strengthening 14

3. 1 INITIAL ACCENTS in French: clash conditions ‘who make SYLLABLE a bet pa[pˑa to…’ -ri ʁi] PITCH ‐ + INTENSITY + ‐ DURATION ‐ + Onset consonant strengthening + ‐ 15

3. 2 PITCH ACCENTS in our 3 varieties • Obligatory accents on metrically strong AP‐final syllables: – Tonal movement (rising or falling) – Eventually intensity peak – Lengthening • APs organized into IPs: – 1 (or more) prenuclear accent(s), 1 nuclear accent – nuclear accent: most prominent, normally rightmost • D’Imperio et al (2007), French left dislocated IPs: – prenuclear and nuclear pitch accents differ in alignment and scaling properties: ALIGNMENT: start of the rise SCALING: tonal level of the H target PERCEPTION PRENUCLEAR EARLIER LATER HIGHER HIGH LEVEL TONE RISE 16

3. 2 PRENUCLEAR vs. NUCLEAR ACCENTS • Rising contours: similar observations for the 3 varieties – Higher scaling of nuclear accents: due to H boundary tone? – Differences in alignment: due to different pitch accent types? – Differences in slope: • convex in prenuclear accents > H*? • concave in nuclear accents > LH* H%? – But some prenuclear accents are actually LH* (especially in S‐French and Occitan) more research needed 17

3. 2 PRENUCLEAR vs. NUCLEAR ACCENTS ‘the story between the North wind and the sun, …’ 18

4. BOUNDARIES: 4. 1 CONTINUATION CONTOURS and HESITATIONS • Continuation rise / sustained pitch: H% ‘the traveling man, er… tightens his coat’ 19

4. 1. 1 CONTINUATION RISE • S‐French: on etymological schwa syllables ‘the coat of a traveling man who passes the…’ 20

4. 1. 1 CONTINUATION RISE • N‐French: also on non etymological schwas ‘the story between the North wind and the sun, …’ 21

4. 1. 1 CONTINUATION RISE • Occitan: on different vowels ‘and then he wanted to make him lose the …’ 22

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL • Continuation fall: L% ‘and he tightened a coat’ 23

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL: boundary tones • Continuation fall: L% • Utterance‐final boundary tone: T# • IP‐final boundary tone: T% 24

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL • N‐French: also on non etymological schwas continuation ‘make a competition’ 25

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL • N‐French: also on non etymological schwas continuation or hesitation ‘who has… won… the North wind. ’ 26

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL • Interrupted prosodic constituents: lengthening and falling contour ‘the coat of a traveling man who passes the…’ 27

4. 1. 2 CONTINUATION FALL • Interrupted prosodic constituents: lengthening and falling contour ‘and then he wanted to make him lose the …’ 28

4. 2 BOUNDARY TONES: UTTERANCE‐FINAL CONTOURS • Utterance‐final contour: L* L# Pitch reaches the baseline of the speaker’s tessitura L# ≠ L% • 2 types of last prenuclear contours: – upstepped rise – delayed peak 29

4. 2. 1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE • D’Imperio et al (2007) Last prenuclear AP in left‐dislocated IPs: slightly different pattern – continuation rise pattern – nuclear configuration: rise – last prenuclear AP: downstep bigger contrast with IP‐final rise • Our data – Nuclear configuration: fall – Last prenuclear accent upstepped (LHi or LH*) bigger contrast with IP‐final fall • Due to an increased range in the focus domain? Focus domain: final, 2 APs – last or nuclear AP: falling contour 30 – prenuclear AP: upstepped rising contour

4. 2. 1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE ‘the one who would make him take off the jacket. The blazer. ’ 31

4. 2. 1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE ‘and decide to find out who is the strongest’ 32

4. 2. 2 DELAYED PRENUCLEAR PEAKS • Utterance‐final contour: L* L# • Last prenuclear AP‐final rises: – both L and H* targets may align later – due to sentence type? cleft sentences – syntactic boundary marked intonationally? – AP basic contour in U‐final conditions: Hi. L*? 33

4. 2. 2 DELAYED PRENUCLEAR PEAKS ‘it is thus the sun who is the strongest’ 34

5. CONCLUSIONS: BASIC CONTOUR OF APs • Basic contour of APs in Gallo‐Romance: LHi. LH* – Occitan AP = clitic group – French AP = clitic group or bigger • Prosodic marking of the AP: – Left: initial phrase accent LHi More research needed on • conditions provoking it • alignment • features splitting up in clash conditions – Right: final pitch accent LH* • Occitan: lexically defined position • French: not lexically defined, but on last full syllable of a lexical word 35

5. CONCLUSIONS: FRENCH SCHWA • Final schwa – S‐French • only etymological schwas • schwas normally realized – N‐French: • etymological schwas normally not realized • non etymological schwas may be inserted at the end of APs 36

5. FURTHER RESEARCH: role of feet? • How are Occitan, S‐French and N‐French feet organized? In what may they differ? • Do feet play a role – in determining the AP maximal/minimal length? – in the appearance of initial accents? – in the assignment of prominences to syllables within APs? – in the alignment of tonal targets? 37

5. FURTHER RESEARCH: intermediate phrases (ip)? Different prosodic hierarchy in the 3 varieties? – Occitan: AP= clitic group > ip > IP > LHi. LH* T‐ T% – S‐French: AP > ip > IP > LHi. LH* T‐ T% – N‐French: AP ? > IP > LHi. LH* ? T% Evidence for ips in Occitan and S‐French: – prosodic interdependence of certain APs – presence of IP‐internal boundary tones –. . . Further research needed U T# 38

ˌmeɾ. se. ˈpla mɛɾ. ˈsi. bo. ˈku ˌmɛʁ. si. bo. ˈku. ə

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