Pitch Peak Timing in German...

1. Prosodic Signalling of (Un)Expected Information in South SwedishGilbert AmbrazaitisLinguistics and PhoneticsCentre for Languages and Literature

2. ... and English ... peak timing → pragmatic contrast How is this pragmatic contrast expressed... ...in Swedish in general? ...in South Swedish in particular? What is “this pragmatic contrast”? Difficult to capture by a single functional parameter (or semantic scale) → Start with “expected – unexpected” Pitch Peak Timing in German...

3. Example: “Jag har sett anden.” → Accent 1: “I have seen the duck.” → Accent 2: “I have seen the ghost.” South Swedish: → Accent 1: early pitch fall (peak at syllable onset) → Accent 2: late pitch fall (peak at syllable offset) The Swedish Word Accents

4. Accent 1 Accent 2

5. Swedish: Pitch timing is utilized on a lexical level. Can it still be used to express pragmatic contrasts – as in German and English? If yes, to what degree? Different capacities for Accent 1 and Accent 2 ? General Research Questions Original Accent 2

6. Aim → apreliminary insight into the prosodic signalling of “(un)expected information” in South Swedish Accent 1 words in monosyllabic utterances Two competing hypotheses H1 – Accent 1 pitch fall is always early. → word accent contrast preservation (CP) → Functional parameter “(un)expected” cannot cause a later timing H2 – No word accent distinction for monosyllabic words. → word accent CP is irrelevant → Timing may be affected by (un)expected information A Pilot Study: Hypotheses and Aims

7. “From Function to Signal”, sorry! Subjects adjust acoustic parameters themselves until test utterance sounds “expected” “neutral” “unexpected” Material: monosyllabic utterances “Röd.” (red) “Blå.” (blue) “Gul.” (yellow) Interactive Manipulation Experiment

8. Material recorded monotonously at medium pitch level by a native speaker of South Swedish Six subjects (2 female, 4 male), aged 30-58; Subject 4 = speaker of test material Subjects used praatmanipulation windows Instructions in written form, 3 sheets: (1) introduction, (2) instructions, (3) working sheet Procedure and subjects

9. Introduction sheet Two friends are having a small chat. A: ”By the way, Lasse has finally bought a new car!” B: ”Really! It’s high time! So what colour did he choose?” A: ”Blue” (or ”Yellow” or ”Red”). Three possible intonation patterns and their meanings were explained by paraphrases: "Blue, as everybody would have expected."→ expected “Blue, isn't it strange?”→ unexpected “Blue.”→ neutral Situational Setting

11. Duration manipulation was used, but hardly systematically with respect to the functional contrast. Pitch manipulation was used to distinguish between all three functional categories by most of the subjects. Only “unexpected” was assigned more or less the same prosodic expression by all subjects. With some exceptions, only falling pitch patterns were created. Results – general tendencies

12. Measurements of peak timing for the falling contours by 5 subjects: → temporal distance vowel onset – F0 maximum [ms] Results – pitch timing

13. Measurements of peak height for the falling contours by 5 subjects: [Hz] Results – pitch height

14. neutral Example: manipulations for test word blue by one subject expected unexpected

15. A preliminary result: In South Swedish Accent 1 utterances, (un)expected information... ... is not signalled through durational means ... is not signalled through a pitch peak timing contrast ... but more likely through differences in pitch height. → Support for H1 (no later timing for 'unexpected') BUT: pitch fall not convincingly early → no clear case of contrast preservation → no support for H2, only partial support for H1 Discussion (1/2)

16. Refinement of the method Functional contrasts must be explained more carefully Concept 'neutral' is problematic Situational setting: who says what (and why and where...) ? Other technical solutions? Scroll bars instead of parameter curves? Open questions / future research Investigate peak height – unexpected information more systematically How unimportant is timing? → methodological artefact? Attempt to elicit the pragmatic contrasts What happens in Accent 2 words? Investigate spontaneous speech data (“from signal to function”) What would German subjects do (with German materials)? Discussion (2/2)

17. Thank You!