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Initial Rises and Discourse

Initial Rises and Discourse. J.-M Marandin & J. German. Phrasing in French. Hierarchy of phrasing: – Bottom level: Accentual phrase – Top level: Intonation phrase – Intermediate level (no consensus, several proposals: Di Cristo, Delais & Post, Jun&Fougeron, Michelas & D’Imperio, etc.).

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Initial Rises and Discourse

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  1. Initial Rises and Discourse J.-M Marandin & J. German

  2. Phrasing in French Hierarchy of phrasing: – Bottom level: Accentual phrase – Top level: Intonation phrase – Intermediate level (no consensus, several proposals: Di Cristo, Delais & Post, Jun&Fougeron, Michelas & D’Imperio, etc.) JSM 2010

  3. Part 1. Initial rises in the literature NB. : For time considerations, we cannot give Astesano’s (and colleagues) studies the place they deserve. They should be included in a complete overview of the issue.

  4. Initial rises AP structure (Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006) (1) s (s s s s s)content word (L)Hi (L)H* where (L)H* is obligatory while (L)Hi is optional JSM 2010

  5. Types of initial rises • Accent mélodique: left edge marker whose occurrence is correlated to ‘chunking’ reasons (length of APs, tempo, etc.). (1) (Les dé clarations) (du président) } n’ont pas convaincu …. Hi Hi • Accent d’insistance: emphasis/emotion marker. (2) (Ton pull est) (for midable) Hi (3) (Il a fait) (une tempête) (hier soir) Hi NB.: The accent d’insistance is described as higher in pitch, longer in duration than the accent mélodique. JSM 2010

  6. Initial rises and information/discourse structure Initial rises have been observed in relation to discourse/information marking: • In relation to Information (narrow) Focus (i. a. Di Cristo 1999). • In relation to Discourse (thematic) Structure (Beyssade et al. 2005, Marandin et al. 2002) JSM 2010

  7. Initial Rises and Information Focus Initial Rises may occur at the left edge of Narrow Information Focus. (4) A.: Il a acheté un livre qui parle de quoi? B.: i. Il a acheté un livre sur lacuisine provenCAL(e) ii. Il a acheté un livre sur la cuisine provenCAL(e) Di Cristo’s analysis: - (4.B.i) is a case of « marquage simple » of the Focus; (4.B.ii) a case of bilateral marking. - Initial rises are not necessarily linked to Kontrast (activated set of alternatives). - Initial rises in relation to Information Focus are analyzed as accents mélodiques (wrapping the focal XP). JSM 2010

  8. Initial rises and discourse structure Initial rises occur at the left edge of Thematic Shifters. (5) A.: Que fumaient les chanteurs de rock ? B.: i. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettes ii. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettes iii. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettes --> A.: et les français? (6) A.: Qui est venu? B.: Bernadette est venue --> A.: et les autres? Beyssade’s et al. analysis: • Thematic shifters are Büring’s S-Topics (i. a. 2003). • They bring about a « residual topic effect »: they call for another questions thematically related to the question they are an answer to. Answers (5.B.i,ii,iii) call for « What did singers of other countries smoke? » • They belong to a dimension orthogonal to the Focus-Ground partition. Thus, they occur either in the ground (5) or the focal part (6) of the answer. • They correspond to T-accents (vs F-accents) in Büring’s framework. JSM 2010

  9. Part 2. Initial rises: new data

  10. Introduction Initial rises are observed in two corpora elicited in controlled conditions (script-based production experiments): – In interrogatives: German & D’Imperio 2010 – In declaratives: Beyssade et al. 2010 Those recent observations – obtained in controlled settings– reinforce the observations reported in the literature (based on a competence basis). JSM 2010

  11. German & D’Imperio (2010) • Wide agreement that phonetically, right edge of contrastive focus is marked, with reasonable reliability, by a transition from regular (rhythmic, syntactic) phrasing, to a deaccented region • Are there cues to the left edge? • Traditional assumption: Hi (initial rise of Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006) is “optional” feature of AP • Hypothesis: Hi (initial rise of Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006) marks or is at least associated with the left edge of a contrastive focus in qu-interrogatives. • Fix the right edge of the contrastive region and systematically manipulate the location of the left edge for textually identical pairs of target sentences

  12. German & D’Imperio (2010) (1) i. Qui a commandé le merlan à la sauce citron ce soir? ii. Qui a commandé le merlan [aux navets]F ce soir? iii. Qui a commandé le merlan aux câpres ce soir? (2) i. Qui a commandé l’entrecôte ce soir? ii. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux navets]F ce soir? iii. Qui a commandé les gambas ce soir?

  13. German & D’Imperio (2010) • Robust predictor of Hi occurrence is phrase length: APs containing more syllables are more likely to contain Hi • How are the two predictors related? • To extent that Hi marks focus, does phrase length interfere with this tendency? • Are very short and very long phrases insensitive to focus? (1) a. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux navets]AP ce soir? b. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux macadamias]AP ce soir?

  14. German & D’Imperio (2010) • 84% of productions included an AP boundary between the NP and the PP • How was the likelihood for Hi on PP affected by phrase length and focus? H* H* Hi? H* [Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]

  15. German & D’Imperio (2010)

  16. PP (I2) initial rises 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 PP focus (narrow) DO focus (wide) 2 syllables 4 syllables German & D’Imperio (2010) H* H* Hi? H* [Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]

  17. German & D’Imperio (2010) H* Hi? H* H* [Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]

  18. IR in declaratives Initial rises are observed in a corpus elicited to study the marking of XPs resolving questions (= Information Focus). Design of the experiment: Subjects are presented with the description of a context (i) and a question: either a partial question (ii) or a broad question (iii). They are asked to read aloud an answer (iv), as if they were actually participating in the dialogue. (i) Context: Richard is a policeman. He has to treat various documents (films, leaflets, K7s) seized in a terrorist cache. (iv) J’ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernière I screened the videos last night JSM 2010

  19. IR in declaratives. Results (1) JSM 2010

  20. IR in declaratives. Illustration (2) Illustration: J’ai élargi le gilet avec du velours noir. I let out the vest with black velvet. B A C D JSM 2010

  21. IR in declaratives. Synthesis JSM 2010

  22. Part 3. Questions Part of a research program on the links between IRs and Discourse ….

  23. Question 1 Are the IRs found in questions and in answers the same ? Potential arguments: • Phonetic: Same phonetic realization ? NB.: Identification of IRs should be unified in the two studies. - Functional: Same role? JSM 2010

  24. Functional role of IRs (1) IRs occur on DOs in approx. 1/3 of the answers to broad questions. - Beyssade’s et al. conjecture: thematic shifters? (8) A. Où en es-tu dans ton enquête? B. [J’ai visionné [les vidéos]ST la nuit dernière]F (9) Top question: What’s up with your investigations? Answer: I screened [the videos] Subordinate-Q.: What about the videos? last night JSM 2010

  25. Functional role of IRs (2) IRs occur on DOs on approx. 2/3 of answers to partial questions: Several analysis possible: • Thematic shifters (10) A. Qu’as-tu visionné la nuit dernière? B. J’ai visionné [les vidéos]ST, F la nuit dernière (11) Top question: What did you screen last night Answer: I screened [the videos] Subordinate-Q.: What about the videos? last night • Or: Marking of the resolving XP • Or (Current conjecture) : IRs are functionally underspecified. They mark an XP as distinguished in a prosodic domain. JSM 2010

  26. Functional role of IRs (3) Corroboration (data currently under verification) The narrow association of ad-verbial seulement (only) with a dependant of the verb is only deterministic when the dependant shows IR. (12) J’ai seulement vu [Bernadette] à Paris = ‘I saw nobody else than Bernadette’ Two cases: Pattern B Pattern C JSM 2010

  27. Question 2 Are the IRs linked to Discourse/Information the same as accent mélodique or accent d’insistance ? Why is the question relevant? « Accent placement in English is determined by a number of different independent factors, which include focushood (as in focus-ground), interestingness or informativeness, emotiveness and others. [..] Pitch accents are available as a structural resource and they appear to be exploited for a number of different uses. Some of them have to do with the realization of focushood and linkhood …  » (Vallduví & Zacharsky 1993). Questions to be solved: • Are the differences pertaining to level of pitch or duration stable and systematic? If yes, are they categorical ? • Conjecture: IR marking the left edge of AP ≠IR marking the left edge of some higher phrase. JSM 2010

  28. References • Astesano C. (2001) Rythme et accentuation en français. Paris: L’Harmattan. • Beyssade, C., E. Delais-Roussarie, J. Doetjes, J.-M. Marandin & A. Rialland (2004). Prosody and Information in French. Corblin, F. & H. de Swart (eds.), Handbook of French Semantics. CSLI, pp. 477-499. • Beyssade, C., B. Hemforth, J.-M. Marandin & C. Portes (2008). The prosody of restrictive seulement in French.Third TIE Conference on Tone and Intonation. Barcelone, pp. 15-17 September 2008. • Beyssade, C., B. Hemforth, J.-M. Marandin & C. Portes (2010). Prosodic markings of Information Focus in French. Proceedings of IDP 2009. • Büring, D. (2003). On D-trees, beans, and B-accents. Linguistics & Philosophy 26:5, pp. 511-545. • Delais-Roussarie E & B. Post (2008). Unités prosodiques et grammaire de l’intonation. Proceedings of JEP 2008. • Di Cristo, A. (1999). Le cadre accentuel du français contemporain, Langues 3(2), pp.184-205, Langues 4(2), pp. 258-267. • German J. & M. D’Imperio (2010). Focus, phrase length, and the distribution of phrase-initial rises in French. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. • Jun, S.-A & C. Fougeron (2002). Realizations of Accentual Phrases in French. Probus 14:147-172. • Marandin J.-M., Beyssade, C., E. Delais-Roussarie, & A. Rialland (2002). Discourse Marking in French: C accents and Discourse Moves. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2002, Aix-en-Provence. • Michelas A & M. D’Imperio (2010). Durational cues and prosodic phrasing in French: evidence for the intermediate phrase. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. • Vallduví Enric & Ron Zacharski 1993, Accenting Phenomena, Association with Focus and the Recursiveness of Focus-Ground. Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam colloquium, U. of Amsterdam, ed. by P. Dekker & al. • Welby P. (2006) French intonational structure: Evidence from tonal alignment. Journal of Phonetics 34(3): 343-371. JSM 2010

  29. Doc. Answers to partial questions JSM 2010

  30. Doc. Answers to broad questions JSM 2010

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