Meanings of Intonational Contours Julia Hirschberg CS 6998

Meanings of Intonational Contours Julia Hirschberg CS 6998 11/28/2020 1

Today z Approaches to understanding contour meaning y. What scheme for describing intonation do they use? x. What difference does this make? y. What kind of evidence do they look at? x. Which is most persuasive? 11/28/2020 2

Sag & Liberman on Intonation and Indirect Speech Acts ‘ 75 z Direct vs. Indirect Speech Acts y. Illocutionary force (e. g. asking) y. Perlocutionary effect (e. g…. . ) y. Can you open that window? z Wh-questions y‘Real’: x“tilde contour” – why? x“hat pattern” 11/28/2020 3

y. Negative-implicating rhetorical: x. Hat pattern (if second accent highest) x. Evidence? • Surprise/redundancy: The blackboard’s painted orange! y. How do we conclude that any intonation contour “means” X? z YNQs: y‘Real’: rising or falling y. Indirect request: plateau or falling 11/28/2020 4

z Production studies: recorded read skits y. Tilde real wh-q y. Neg-implicating wh: second accent more prominent than first z Perception studies: match recording to context y. Tilde real wh-q and not other y. Late peak either y. Terminal rise real ynq 11/28/2020 5

z Conclusion: some contours can ‘freeze’ a pragmatic interpretation? 11/28/2020 6

Hirschberg & Ward ’ 92: Rise/fall/rise (L*+H L-H%) z The question: why does one contour have different meanings? y. Uncertainty/incredulity or lack of speaker commitment to some scalar value y. When will it mean one over the other? z Hypothesis: variation in F 0, amplitude, duration, voice quality z Experiment: 11/28/2020 7

y. Record same sentence with each interpretation (pretest) y. Analyze each token to extract acoustic and prosodic features of hypothesis y. Resynthesize tokens exchanging all possible combinations of F 0, RMS, duration and spectral features of ‘uncertainty’ tokens with ‘incredulity’ tokens 11/28/2020 8

z Forced choice task: uncertainty or incredulity? z Results: F 0 and spectral features influence uncertainty/incredulity distinction although amplitude and duration also differ 11/28/2020 9

Bolinger z Accent A: high pitch then jump down (H* L-? ) y. It’s easy. z Accent B: jump up (H* H-? ) y. Plateau? y. Is that the best you can do? z Accent C: Jump down (H+!H* or H* !H*…? ) y. That’s just what I said to your mother. y. Its never too late to mend. 11/28/2020 10

A Compositional Account (Pierrehumbert & Hirschberg ’ 92) z Contours convey relationahips y. Between current, prior, and following utterances y. Between propositional content and mutual beliefs z Contour meanings are composites of the meanings of their pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones 11/28/2020 11

Pitch Accents z Convey information status about discourse references, modifiers, predicates and their relationship to S and H’s mutual beliefs y. H*: X is new and predicated My name is H* Mark H* Liberman H-H% y. L*: X is salient but not part of the speaker’s predication …L* Stalin was L* right H-H% y. H*+L: X is inferable from S and H’s mutual beliefs and part of the predication H*+L Don’t H*+L forget to H*+L take your H* lunch L-L% 11/28/2020 12

y. H+L* (H+!H*): X is inferable from S and H’s mutual beliefs but not part of predication She’s H+L* teething L-L% y. L*+H: X is part of a scale but not part of the predication …I fed the L*+H goldfish L-H% y. L+H*: X is part of a scale and in S and H’s mutual beliefs (narrow focus) I don’t L+H* want L+H* shrimp L-H% I want L+H* lobster L-L% 11/28/2020 13

Phrase Accents z Convey relationships among intermediate phrases, such as which form part of larger interpretive units y. L-: X L- Y means X and Y are interpreted separately from one another Do you want a sandwich L- or would you like a soda y. H-: X H- Y means X and Y should be interpreted together Do you want apple juice H- or orange juice 11/28/2020 14

Boundary Tones z Signal the directionality of interpretation of intonational phrases y. H%: X H% Y means interpret X wrt Y You made seven errors L-H% What a shame L-L% We don’t have time to continue today. y. L%: X L% Y means no directionality of interpretation suggested You made seven errors L-L% What a shame L-H% We don’t have time to continue today. 11/28/2020 15

Unresolved Questions z How do the meanings of pitch accents in a single phrase combine? The L* blackboard’s painted H* orange L-L% z How do we distinguish the meaning of a phrase accent from that of a boundary tone – especially in intonational phrases with a single intermediate phrase? y. E. g. H* H-L% (plateau) vs. H*H-H% (high-rise question) vs. H*L-L% (declarative) z Is this framework useful for investigating contour meaning? E. g. downstepped contours, H+L* 11/28/2020 16

Next Week z Discussion questions 11/28/2020 17