Forms and Positions for PUSH Units
An inventory of Prosodic Unit Forms and Functionsfor Romanian Intonation
Doina Jitcă1,Vasile Apopei1, Magdalena Jitcă2
1 Institute for Computer Science, Romanian Academy, Iasi Branch, Romania2 Faculty of Computer Science, University “Alexandru Ioan Cuza”, Iasi, Romania
Phrase partitioning into AU/AUG
structures
An Accentual Unit of an Intonation Contour has:
An elementary melodic contour pattern
A range and a position in the F0 scale
tonal ratios with other AUs within a non-elementary
melodic contour at Accentual Unit Group level
An Accentual Unit Group (AUG) is defined as a
sintagmatic relation between two of its constituents
An AUG melodic contour is defined as a tonal ratio
sequence between its AU/AUG constituents and it may
be present at different level of the prosodic tree
Examples of Romanian melodic contours
The Functional Prosodic Unit Categories
PUSH (PH) units contribute to pushing forward the communication act by creating high tension segments of speech with target tones near the top level of the parent unit F0 range.
POP (PO) units correspond to the relaxed or low tension speech segments within the communication act by targeting the tones lower than those of the corresponding PUSH unit. The name “POP” suggest that a
F0 range POP unit is related to a PUSH unit by the means of a tonal contrast
Focus (F/f ) units play a role only in word neutral focusing (F-more prominent/ f-less prominent). The acoustical evidences for a focused unit consist in the tonal return towards the end of the unit, at the same
tone level as in the beginning
Link (L) units generate tonal linking between units of the previous types, without generating neutral or contrastive focus at the related word level
PUSH-DOWN (PD) units generate a PUSH event during the accented syllable and then bring the tone at low level on the next unaccented one/ones PUSH-DOWN (PD+F) units generate a PUSH event in the beginning of the accented syllable and during the most part of vowel the tone decreases until the end of this syllable, generating a contrastive focus
POP-UP (PU) units first perform the POP event (generated by a low target tone) during the accented syllable and then increase the tone during the unaccented one/ones POP*+PH units perform a POP event during the stressed syllable and then a rising movement until the Top level, generating a secondary PUSH event
Conclusions
The intonation meaning must be thought in relation with the textual units (words and word groups) to whom the elementary and non-
elementary intonation units apply “prosodic accents”. We consider these “prosodic accents” as functions at the communicative act level. They
may or may not be significant at semantic level.
The AUGs are considered in essence tonal contrasts between the tonal characteristics of two of its component units (a high unit vs. a low
one). Each group unit from the utterance tree contains a local focus.
By relating all the prosodic units (elementary and nonelementary) into a functional hierarchy, a good understanding of different types of
semantic accentuation and deaccentuation events can be achieved.
Without special training, native speakers can’t identify the functional components of an intonation contour by only performing a visual and
perceptual analysis. These are new elements of the intonation modeling that have to be taught to students as elementary melodic contours
and after that, as rules for combining them into complex intonational contours corresponding to different syntactic structures.
T2
T3 F
PH
PO
B1
T1
B2
B3
time
F 0
T2 T3
B1
T1
B2
B3
time
F 0
AU1
AU2
AU5 AU6
AU3
AU4
AUG1
AUG3 AUG2
GivenThe Autosegmental-Metrical model (D.R. Ladd)
Prosodic domain trees describe hierarchical structures of the
tunes…………………………………………………………………….
A Weak/ Strong partitioning of prosodic domains is performed
The prosodic trees consist of elementary constituents (leaves)
and non-elementary constituents (nodes)……………………………
Each prosodic domain contains a focus event. There are
narrow domains and broad domains………………………………
The prosodic domains are viewed as a syntagmatic relation
between two constituents……………………………………………
The IPO model
works with pitch movements as units (phonetically defined) and
with their combination into different configurations, that are both in
essence melodic contours with beginning and ending tones. The
advantage of working with pitch events as units is the possibility
to annotate the events of type focus without accent…………….
The ToBI system
defines a set of pitch contour events that are necessary for a
phonological understanding of the intonation contours..................
New The prosodic units of the utterance trees are functional units
and their label sequences describe the local tunes at each level of
the hierarchy……………………………………………………………
A functional unit sequence partitioning is performed……………
Elementary prosodic units – Accentual Units (AU) / non-
elementary units - Accentual Unit Groups (AUG)………………
A set of functions at the communicative act level we applied to
the partition constituents (focus is one of the functions)…………..
The syntagmatic relation between two constituents of a unit is
suggested by applying them the PUSH / POP functions…………..
AUs and AUGs are melodic contours. The AU types are related
to a set of F0 pattern categories that are characterized
phonetically by F0 pattern skeletons and phonologically (by
means of the function set). AUs and AUGs are functionally
equivalent. The AUG description as functional label sequences
gives them a position into the relative F0 scale of the parent unit)
Phonological events are low level events comparatively to the
functional events generated by elementary or non-elementary
melodic contours…………………………………………………..
Lu-’mi-na e-’ra ’sla-bă dar re-cu-nos-’cu o ’fă-ră gre-u-’ta-te
Speaker ID Prosodically annotated text by means of
functional labels
BC (Lu‟mina PH / e‟ra L/ „slabă PU ) PH+F /(dar o
recunos‟cu PH /fără greu‟tate PO) PO
(PH/L/PU)PH+F/ (PH/PO)PO
JD ((Lu‟mina PH /e‟ra L / „slabă PO*+PH ) PH /dar o
recunos‟cu F /‟fără greutate PO
(PH/L/PO*+PH)PH/ F/ PO
Romanian Intonation Modelling
H*
PHH*
L+H*
PHL+H*
L*H
Top line
PHL*H
T2
T3 F
PH
PO
B1
T1
B2
B3
time
F 0
T2 T3
f
PH
PO
B1
T1
B2
B3
time
F 0
PH Unit in first position PH Unit in middle position
Partial Intonation Contours as F0 contour envelopes
H*
PDH*
H+L*
PD+FH+L*
Bottom line
PH+F
Top line
Derived PUSH Units
PUSH-Down PUSH-Down and focus PUSH and neutral focus
Forms for POP, FOCUS and LINK Units
L*Bottom line
POL*
H*
Bottom line
POH*
H+!H*
Bottom line
POH+!H*
H*
FH*
Bottom line
TOP Line H*fH*
L*+HBottom line
PUL*+H
Derived POP Units
Bottom line
PUL*
H*
Bottom line
L
Top line Top line
Top line Top line
Bottom line Bottom line
Bottom line
PO*+PH
Top line
POP-UP with Major focus POP-UP with Minor focus POP with L*H PA
Major neutral FOCUS Minor neutral FOCUS Tonal Linking
POP with an implicit focus POP with
deaccentuation
POP with partial
deaccentuation
PUSH without focus PUSH with L+H* PA PUSH as secondary
event