@article {523,
	title = {Compositionality in intonation: Are tunes composed of independent elements?},
	year = {2023},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {A recurrent issue in the study of intonation relates to whether contours should be treated as gestalts [1, 2] or composites of independent elements [3, 4]. We contribute to this debate by examining a corpus of 2135 Greek wh-questions, elicited from 18 speakers using a discourse completion task (DCT). DCTs involved two scenarios: Scenario A presented a situation ending with an information-seeking question, while Scenario B presented a situation in which the wh-question was used as an implicit statement. The expected tune for Scenario A is autosegmentally analysed as a L*+H pitch accent on the utterance-initial wh-word, followed by a L- phrase accent and a H\% boundary tone; for Scenario B the expected tune is analysed as L+H* L- L\% [5]. We applied functional principal component analysis (FPCA), a data-driven method that breaks down curves into components capturing independent modes of curve variation. FPCA was followed by LMEMs on the principal component coefficients. The results show that the pitch movement associated with each of the posited tonal elements is captured by a different PC: PC1 captures the shape of the fall (as a consequence of peak height and alignment), PC2 captures the extent of the initial rise and subsequent peak alignment of the pitch accent (the difference between L*+H and L+H*), and PC4 the difference between a final rise (H\%) and low, flat pitch (L\%). Given that each PC presents an independent mode of variation, we can conclude that tunes are composites of independent elements. These results provide prima facie evidence for tune compositionality.


References

[1] Hirst, D., \& Di Cristo, A.1998. A survey of intonation systems. In D. Hirst \& A. Di Cristo (Eds.), Intonation Systems a Survey of Twenty Languages, 1-44.
[2] Xu, Y. 2005. Speech melody as articulatorily implemented communicative functions. Speech Communication, 46(3-4), 220-251.
[3] Pierrehumbert, J. \& Hirschberg, J. B. 1990. The meaning of intonational contours in the interpretation of discourse. In P.R. Cohen, J. Morgan \& M.E. Pollack (Eds.), Intentions in Communication, 271-311.
[4] Ladd, D. R. 2008. Intonational Phonology. Cambridge University Press.
[5] Baltazani, M., Gryllia, S., \& Arvaniti, A. 2020. The Intonation and Pragmatics of Greek wh- Questions. Language and Speech, 63(1), 56{\textendash}94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0023830918823236
},
	author = {Gryllia, Stella and Arvaniti, Amalia}
}
@article {509,
	title = {Can Rapid Prosody Transcription be replicated?},
	year = {2022},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {Utrecht, The Netherlands},
	abstract = {Prominence is studied using Rapid Prosody Transcription (RPT), in which na{\"\i}ve participants hear utterances and mark the words they consider prominent. One such study, Arvaniti et al. (2022; Speech Prosody), examined the prominence scores of 281 accents {\textendash} independently coded as H* or L+H* using phonetic criteria and as contrastive or non-contrastive using pragmatic criteria {\textendash} provided by Standard Southern British English (SSBE) speakers. Individual participant responses fell into three patterns: responses based on acoustic prominence (favouring L+H* accents), pragmatic meaning (favouring contrastive accents), or both (marking both L+H*s and contrastive accents as prominent). We tested whether RPT results and these response patterns are replicable and explainable by Empathy Quotient (EQ), which enhances attention to meaning leading to higher scores for contrastive accents, and Autism Quotient (AQ) or musicality (measured by mini-PROMS), which enhance attention to phonetic detail leading to higher scores for L+H*s. Sixty two SSBE speakers participated in RPT using the method and materials of Arvaniti et al. (2022). The aggregate results were replicated: contrastive L+H*s were significantly more likely and non-contrastive H*s significantly less likely to be considered prominent, while non-contrastive L+H*s and contrastive H*s had similarly low scores. Individual participant responses were not affected by AQ. However, participants with high EQ did prioritize pragmatic over phonetic cues (i.e. they favoured contrastive accents independently of shape). Finally, those scoring high in musicality were most sensitive to phonetic differences particularly when they combined with pragmatics (leading to very high scores for contrastive L+H*s and very low scores to non-contrastive H*s).
},
	author = {Orrico, Riccardo and Gryllia, Stella and Kim, Jiseung and Arvaniti, Amalia}
}
@article {493,
	title = {Focus and accent in English},
	year = {2021},
	publisher = {Nederlandse Vereniging voor Fonetische Wetenschappen},
	address = {online},
	abstract = {Contrastive focus in English is marked with a rising accent (autosegmentally L+H*) and broad (all new) focus with a high accent (H*). However, inconclusive production and perception evidence supports the idea that L+H* is simply an emphatic version of H*, not phonologically distinct from it.  We used Rapid Prosody Transcription to test these two views. Forty-seven speakers of Standard Southern British English (SSBE) listened to 86 SSBE utterances and marked the words they considered prominent or emphatic. Accents (N = 281) were independently coded as H* or L+H* using phonetic criteria, and as contrastive or non-contrastive using pragmatic criteria. If L+H* is an emphatic H*, L+H*s should be rated more prominent than H*s; if the accents encode a pragmatic distinction, contrastive accents should be rated more prominent than non-contrastive ones. The results showed effects of both accent and pragmatics (L+H* > H*; contrastive > non-contrastive) and no interaction. Contrastive L+H*s were rated most prominent, non-contrastive H*s least prominent, while non-contrastive L+H*s and contrastive H*s had average and almost identical ratings. Participants used different strategies: some focused on accent type, others on pragmatics, and still others made neither distinction. These results suggest that a reason for the continuing debate about H* and L+H* may be that the accents form a weak contrast which some speakers acquire and attend to while others do not. Similarly, researchers who focus on contrastive L+H* and non-contrastive H* see distinct categories, while those who focus on non-contrastive L+H*s and contrastive H*s tend to see a continuum.},
	author = {Arvaniti, Amalia and Gryllia, Stella and Zhang, Cong and Katherine Marcoux}
}
