Tonal Alignment in Irish Dialects

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Tonal Alignment in Irish Dialects
Martha Dalton and Ailbhe Ní Chasaide Phonetics
and Speech Lab Trinity College Dublin September
2004
This project is funded by the Irish Research
Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences
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Prosody of Irish Dialects
Aim of project is to analyse and compare prosody
of 4 dialects
Donegal Irish (DI)
Mayo Irish (MI)
Connemara Irish (CI)
Kerry Irish (KI)
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The area of prosody presents a striking gap in
our knowledge of the linguistic structure of
Irish.
Prosody of Irish Dialects
Many detailed segmental accounts of Irish
dialects.
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Prosody of Irish Dialects
Linguistic (e.g. questions vs.
declaratives) Coverage
Paralinguistic
i.e. attitude, mood,
emotion   
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Prosody of Irish Dialects
3 Phonetic dimensions
Intonation to provide an account of the primary
pitch patterns of each dialect
Rhythmic/temporal structure to provide a
description of the salient rhythmic/temporal
characteristics of the dialects
Voice Quality to provide an account of voice
source correlates of major intonational
categories, and an account of how voice quality
is exploited for linguistic differentiation and
for paralinguistic communication of affect and
attitude
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Intonation of Irish Dialects
Qualitative (Autosegmental
Metrical) Methodology Quantitative
(Fujisaki modelling)
View to technical exploitation in speech synthesis
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Intonation Phase 1Qualitative Coverage
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Intonation Phase 2Quantitative Coverage
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Intonation Phase 3Combine analyses
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Prosody of Irish Dialects

• More understanding of how the two models
  correlate/diverge

• Dual approach will test and constrain each other

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Phase 1- Methodology for intonational analysis
Qualitative Analysis using IViE (Grabe et al.)
Recorded materials include

• Read passages

• Read sentences

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Phase 1 - Preliminary Results
Striking differences between Declaratives of
Donegal Irish (DI) and the other two dialects,
Mayo Irish (MI) and Connemara (CI).
Donegal Irish (DI)
Mayo Irish (MI) Connemara Irish (CI)
Connaught Irish
Kerry Irish (KI)
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Donegal Irish
Review of main declarative patterns
Dominant nuclear accent LH
Dominant prenuclear accent LH
Dominant boundary tone is 0
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Donegal Irish - Declaratives
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Connaught Irish
Review of main declarative patterns
Dominant nuclear accent HL
Dominant prenuclear accents - sequences of high
or high-falling accents H
or HL
Downstep is a strong feature of CI.
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Connaught Irish - Declaratives
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Tonal Alignments
Question of whether the LH of DI and the HL
of Connaught Irish are surface realisation
differences has already been considered
Is it merely a case of temporal realignment of
melodic and segmental material, or are we dealing
with separate phonological categories?
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Tonal Alignments
Previously suggested tonal difference merely a
question of timing
There are compelling reasons to suggest that we
are not dealing here with simple peak alignment
differences.
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Tonal Alignments

• In perceptual terms the nuclear LH of DI is
  clearly a rising accent
• In Connaught Irish there is clearly a falling
  nuclear accent HL
• The shape of the global contour over the course
  of an utterance is very different and does not
  look a simple phase shift

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Tonal Alignments
It is clear that we are dealing with different
phonological categories rather than different
timing alignment of the tonal and segmental
content
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Peak alignments across dialects
Donegal Irish
Connaught Irish

• Speakers
• 2 Donegal Speakers
• 6 Connaught Speakers
• 3 Connemara
• 2 Mayo
• 1 Aran Islands

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Materials and measurements
Materials 40 Sentences 8 repetitions of
each Measuring the location of the peak as a
percentage of the accented vowel
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Materials
gob
Prenuclear position Gobann an sceach amach thar
an mballa Tá gobán ag teacht amach thar an
mballa Bag an gobán a bhí an teach a bfhearr
Nuclear position Ni maith le Daidí an gob Ni
maith le Daidí an gobán Ni maith le Daidí an
gobadán
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Donegal and Connemara peaks
Donegal
Connemara
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Donegal Peak Alignment
Gobann an sceach amach thar an mballa
Initial accent
c
v
c
v
c v c
Tá gobán ag teacht amach thar an mballa
Bag an gobán a bhí an teach a bfhearr
c v v
c
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Donegal Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Gobann an sceach amach thar an mballa
Initial accent
Tá gobán ag teacht amach thar an mballa
Bag an gobán a bhí an teach a bfhearr
c
c
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Donegal Peak Alignment
Ni maith le Daidí an gob
Nuclear accent
Ni maith le Daidí an gobán
c
v
c
v
c
Ni maith le Daidí an gobadán
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
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Donegal Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Donegal Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Ni maith le Daidí an gob
Nuclear accent
c
v
c
Ni maith le Daidí an gobán
c
v
c
v
c
Ni maith le Daidí an gobadán
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Connemara Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Tonal Alignments
Our comparison focuses not only on the Northern
vs. Southern realisations, but also on the
differences among the Southern dialects.
Experimental data has shown differences in peak
alignments relative to the onset of the accented
vowel across the Southern dialects.
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Peaks in other Connaught dialects
Mayo
Aran Islands
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Initial accent
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
c v
c v
c c
v
c
c
v
v
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Aran Island Peak Alignment
Gobann an sceach amach thar an mballa
Initial accent
c
v
c
v
c
Tá gobán ag teacht amach thar an mballa
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
Ba ag an gobán a bhi an teach a bfhearr
v
c
c
c
v
c
v
c
c
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Aran Islands Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Aran Islands Peak Alignment
Initial accent
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Tonal Alignments
The dominant nuclear accent in the Connaught
Dialects is HL
The peak in Connemara Irish is consistently
aligned earlier than the nuclear vowel
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
c
v
c
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Mayo Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Aran Islands Peak Alignment
Ni maith le Daidí an gob
Nuclear accent
c
v
c
Ni maith le Daidí an gobán
c
v
c
v
c
Ni maith le Daidí an gobadán
c
v
c
v
c
v
c
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Aran Islands Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Aran Islands Peak Alignment
Nuclear accent
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Nuclear Peak Alignments
Prenuclear Peak Alignments
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Nuclear Peak Alignments
Nuclear Peak Alignments
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Conclusions

• Donegal Irish has consistently late peaks
• Connemara Irish has consistent early peaks in
  nuclear position relative to the nuclear vowel
• In prenuclear position there is always peak lag
  in Connemara Irish relative to the vowel
• In both Mayo Irish and Aran Irish the more
  unstressed syllables following the nuclear vowel
  the later the peak
• In prenuclear initial accents the greater the
  anacrusis the earlier the peaks in both Mayo
  Irish and Aran Irish