Pitch Variation and Pragmatic Meaning

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Pitch Variation and Pragmatic Meaning

• Carlos Gussenhoven
• University of Nijmegen
• The Netherlands

6th NWCL International Conference Prosody and
Pragmatics 14-16 November 2003 University of
Central Lancashire
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not surprised
surprised
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1
L H H
Gussenhoven Rietveld 2000
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2
5

• End pitches 180 - 195 - 210
• -pitches 130 - 145 - 160
• (2) -pitches 80 - 90 - 100
• Length Final vs. Pre-final accent
• 36 contours, on 4 sentences

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Explanation

• Perceived surprise is a function of the pitch
  range
• Pitch range is perceived in terms of the distance
  between realizations of L and H

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not like this
but like this
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L H H
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2
L LH H
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Wider view

• Languages have tonal grammars
• Speakers of all languages also use the phonetic
  implementation to signal paralinguistic meanings
• Phonetic paralinguistic meaning draws on
  universally understood metaphors of biologically
  determined form-function relations
• Grammatical intonational meaning will often
  mirror those form-function relations, but such
  phonology-morphology relations may be arbitrary

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Animal communication
Language

• Gradient forms
• Non-arbitrary meaning (natural)
• Form meaning

• Discrete forms
• Potentially arbitrary meaning
• Dual structure (phonology vs morpho-syntax)
• Coded in representation

• Controlled in phonetic
• implementation

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Knowledge of vocal sound production

• Size Frequency Code
• Energy (a) degree Effort Code

(b) phasing Production (Phase) Code
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Three biological codes
and
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• Many meanings are derived from these codes, by
  social agreement.
• Some influence of the native language (Aoju
  Chens Type 1 difference)
• The three codes are accidental the speech
  production mechanism originally arose for
  different reasons (exaptation).
• Meanings can be contradictory (Type 3
  difference).

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Two meaning classes

• Affective meanings refer to the speaker
• Informational meaning refer to the message

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Ohala 1983

• Frequency Code (cf. Morton 1977) biologically
  determined relation between larynx size and
  frequency of vibration
• But not all meanings can be related to this code
  (e.g. high fall is more authoritative than low
  fall, Ohala 1983)
• And why are forms ever arbitrary?

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Meanings of the Frequency Code
High Low, Affective Vulnerable -
protective Submissive - Authoritative Uncertain
- Certain
High Low, Informational Statement - Question
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Meanings of the Effort Code
Wide Narrow, Affective Excited -
Dull Surprised - Unimpressed Helpful - Not
helpful
Wide Narrow, Informational Significant - Not
significant
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Meaning of the Production Code, Informational
Beginning of utterance, High Low New topic -
continuation
End of utterance, High Low Continuation - End
of turn
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Codes abstract away from physiology

• To use the Frequency Code, we do not alter the
  size of our larynx
• To use the Effort Code, we need not exert more
  effort
• To use the Production, Code we need not make
  breath groups coincide with lowered/raised edges
  of phrases

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Two substitute forms

• Late peaks to suggest high peaks
• High register to suggest wide excursion

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Liberman Pierrehumbert 1984
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Substitute pitch height

• Late f0 peaks can substitute for high f0 peaks

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Substitute pitch span

• High pitch can suggest wide pitch span (register
  for span)

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Influence of the native languageDifferent
choices in the case of conflicting meanings
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Influence of the native language

• Hadding Studdert-Kennedy 1964
• Gussenhoven Chen 2000
• Chen, Rietveld Gussenhoven 1999

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Hadding Studdert-Kennendy Phonetica 1964.
Reprinted in Bolingers Intonation A Book of
Readings
For Jane/För Jane
S H
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Is this a question or a statement?
American English and Swedish listeners
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H
S
Question
F0 of end pitch
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Question
H S
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Explanation

• Swedish listeners are more sensitive to peak
  height differences than English listeners
• because Swedish has no final rise to express
  interrogativity, while English does

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Gussenhoven Chen 2000

• Universal cues of interrogativity
• peak height, end pitch, peak alignment

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Ralida, Dorumo, etc.
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These are sentences from a language spoken on a
South Sea island. Which of the two utterances is
the question?
Dutch, Hungarian and Chinese listeners Stimuli
presented paired with standard stimulus
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Chen, Rietveld Gussenhoven 1999
HL L LH H
Female bilingual Du-Eng speaker
Confident Not confident
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Explanation

• For some difference in Hz, Dutch listeners get
  more meaning out of the Frequency Code than BrE
  listeners
• This is because Dutch has a narrower pitch range

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Conflicting choices

• Chen, Gussenhoven Rietveld (2000)
• Smiljanic Hualde (2001)
• Ladd Morton 1997
• Peters 2002
• Grønnum

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Case 1 Two ways of using the Effort Code
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Case 1 Two ways of using the Effort Code
1
2
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• 1 more precise realization of H, i.e. inside
  the syllable it associates with
• (Smiljanic Hualde, 2001 Zagreb and Belgrade
  Serbocroation)
• 2 more precise realization greater excursion,
  and substitute later peak (Ladd Morton
  1997 later peaks sound more emphatic)

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Hamburg German (Peters 2002)
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Effort Code Emphatic non-emphatic
Chen, Gussenhoven Rietveld 2000
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Register HL L, LH H
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Explanation

• Dutch Substitute use of register for pitch span
  to express emphasis (Effort Code)
• English Use of register to express friendliness
  (Frequency Code)
• So dont perceive Dutch listeners friendliness in
  higher registers?

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Danish (Grønnum)
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Danish (Grønnum)
HL HL HL
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Danish (Grønnum)
HL HL HL
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Testing the Production Code English Dutch
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D
F
K
The D is in section 3, the F is in section
5, the K is in section 7
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Initiality
The D is in section...
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Finality
... is in section 3
with five source utterances
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Do you think this sentence fragment is from the
first, second or third sentence in the passage?
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Bel, B. and I. Marlien (Eds.) (2002). Speech
Prosody 2002. An Interna tional Conference,
AixenProvence. Laboratoire Parole et Langage,
CNRS and Universite de Provence. Chen, A., C.
Gussenhoven, and T. Rietveld (2002).
Languagespecific uses of the Eort Code. See
Bel Marlien (2002), pp. 211--214. Chen, A., T.
Rietveld, and C. Gussenhoven (1999).
Languagespecific ef fects of pitch range on
the perception of universal intonational mean
ing. In Proceedings of the 9th Eurospeech
Conference, Volume II, pp. 1403--1406. Gordon,
M. K. (1999). The intonational structure of
Chickasaw. In Pro ceedings of the 14th
International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Vol
ume 3, pp. 1993--1996. Grønnum, N. (1983).
Standard Danish sentence intonation. Phonetic
data and their representation. Folia Linguistica
17, 187--220. Gussenhoven, C. (1999).
Discreteness and gradience in intonational con
trasts. Language and Speech 42, 281--305.
Gussenhoven, C. (2002). Intonation and
interpretation Phonetics and phonology. See Bel
Marlien (2002), pp. 47--57. Gussenhoven, C.
and A. Chen (2000). Universal and
languagespecific ef fects in the perception of
question intonation. Proceedings of the 6th
International Conference on the Processing of
Spoken Language 1, 91-- 94.
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Gussenhoven, C. and T. Rietveld (2000). The
behavior of H and L un der variations in
pitch range in Dutch rising contours. Language
and Speech 43, 183--203. Haan, J., L. Heijmans,
T. Rietveld, and C. Gussenhoven (2002). Explain
ing attitudinal ratings of Dutch rising
contours Morphological struc ture vs. the
Frequency Code. Phonetica 59, 180--194. Hadding,
K. and M. StuddertKennedy (1964). An
experimental study of some intonation contours.
Phonetica 11, 175--185. Reprinted in Bolinger
(1972 348358). Liberman, M. and J.
Pierrehumbert (1984). Intonational invariance
under changes in pitch range and length. In M.
Arono and R. T. Oehrle (Eds.), Language and
Sound Structure, pp. 157--233. Cambridge, MA and
London, England MIT Press. Ohala, J. J. (1983).
Crosslanguage use of pitch An ethological view.
Phonetica 40, 1--18. Ohala, J. J. (1984). An
ethological perspective on common crosslanguage
utilization of f0 invoice. Phonetica 41, 1--16.
Ohala, J. J. (1996). The frequency code
underlies the sound symbolic use of voice pitch.
In L. Hinton, J. Nichols, and O. J. J. (Eds.),
Sound symbolism, pp. 325--347. Cambridge
Cambridge University Press. Peters, J. (2001).
Intonation und Fokus im Hamburgischen.
Linguistische Berichte 189, 27--57.
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The End