Totoli Intonation

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This presentation, which was held at the DOBES
Meeting in June 2007 in Nijmegen, shows some very
preliminary findings on Totoli intonation. As the
analysis of the material used for this
presentation still is in progress, there is no
guarantee for it's correctness. As with many yet
undescribed languages some assumptions on the
intonation had to be made in order to get started
with the analysis. These assumptions are
currently tested on spontaneous material, and
they may turn out to be incorrect in a later
stage. Therefore these slides are not to be cited
in any way.
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Totoli Intonation

• Some preliminary findings

Claudia Leto
DobeS Project Totoli Ruhr-Universität Bochum
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Outline
1 Introduction 2 Main Contours and
Functions 3 Difficulties 4 Outlook
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1 Introduction

• a) The Totoli Language
• - spoken in northern Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

Map 1 Indonesia
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1 Introduction
a) The Totoli Language

• - Austronesian,
• Tomini-Tolitoli Group
• - ca. 5000 speakers
• (different competence levels)
• - speakers not literate in native
• language
• - no intonational analysis so far

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1 Introduction

• b) Investigated Data
• - single words with different syllable structure
  and segmental material (without and with
  carrierphrase)
• - elicited question-answer pairs, and
  imperatives (positive negative)
• - spontaneous speech (stimuli pearstory,
  maptask)
• c) Framework
• - Autosegmental-Metrical Framework,
  
• e.g. Pierrehumbert (1980), Ladd (1996),
  Gussenhoven (2004)

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2 Main Contours and Functions
Three main contours found so far a) L-H b)
H-L c) H-H
penultimate final
penultimate final
penultimate final
rise in penultimate peak early in final pitch
drop towards end
deep in penultimate rise begins in final pitch
rise towards end
pitch rise in penultimate peak late in
final stays high until end
Questions
Statements / Imperatives
Progredient
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2 Main Contours and Functions

• a) L-H most frequent contour for questions

L-H (Ex.1) kodoong
inako ko- doong inako ADA- want
where? 'Where do you (want to) go?'
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2 Main Contours and Functions

• b) H-L most frequent contour for
• statements and imperatives

H-L (Ex.2) kodoong mogole ko-
doong mo- gole ST- want AV- ask for 'He
wants to ask (for s.th.).'
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2 Main Contours and Functions
H-L (Ex.3) kena motuluna kena mo-
tulu -na don't ITR- sleep
-3s.POSS 'Don't sleep!'
NB Nasal onset in final syllable triggers ?
truncation -gt final dip not as clear
as in (Ex.2)
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2 Main Contours and Functions
H-L (Ex.4) tombolanai tombo -an
-ai throw -LV -VEN 'Throw it over
here!'
NB vowel sequences (or long vowels) in last
syllables cause very clear pitch drop
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2 Main Contours and Functions

• c) H-H most frequent contour
• for progredient intonation

H-H (Ex.4) jaabanai jaab -an
-ai answer -LV -VEN 'S/he anwered'
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2 Main Contours and Functions
Context for (Ex.4)
H-H H-L H-(L)
jaabanai i Ali
nangaanko jaab -an -ai
i Ali noN- kaan -ko answer -LV
-VEN PN PN AV.RLS- eat
-AND 'S/he anwered "(It was) Ali (who) ate
it."'
NB voiceless plosive in onset of final
syllable of nangaanko 'he ate (it)' causes a)
pitch jump instead of rise in penultimate
-gt impression of prominence b)
truncation of final syllable -gt no clear
pitch drop
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2 Main Contours and Functions
Evidence for alignment with phrase boundaries
H-L piduan kasabatan
piduan ko- sabat -an cup ST- arrange
-LV 'An arranged cup ( a cup arranged on a
table).'
H-L piduan ana piduan ana
cup MED 'This (is a) cup.'
H-L piduan 'Cup'
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3 Difficulties

• a) great impact of segmental material on
  contours (preceding section)
• b) in utterances with focussed constituents or
  question words in other position than the last,
  we have high targets on the last syllables of
  these constituents.

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3 Difficulties
H? L-H (Ex.5) ise
i nangaanko saginna isei
noN- kaan -ko sagin -na who? AV.RLS-
eat -AND banana -3s.POSS Who ate his/her
banana?
high target on final syllable of question
word falling contour until low target of L-H
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3 Difficulties
H? H-L (Ex.6) i Ali anu nangaanko
i Ali anu noN- kaan -ko PN PN
REL AV.RLS- eat -AND (It was) Ali (who)
ate it.
high target on final syllable of focussed
constituent How can the falling contour in
between this and the high target in H-L be
described?
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3 Difficulties

• H? H?
• kau Bar tiitii(ngi) kan
  monimpuuni
• kau Akbar RDP2- tiing -i kan moN- timpuun
  i
• 2s PN RDP2- hear -LV.IRR perhaps ITR-
  begin -LV.IRR
• H? H? H-L
• ulai ngina moopus kan ngina
• uliai ngina mo- opus kan ngina
• from Q ST- finished perhaps Q
• 'You, Akbar, maybe you hear again, from where to
  begin, (and) maybe where to end.'

(Ex.7)
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4 Outlook

• Further investigations on different aspects are
  necessary
• a) more detailed analysis of impacts of
  different segmental material on contours
• b) in depth investigation of event alignment for
  the last two syllables of a phrase
• c) possible correlations of different contours
  in same function with givenness of information
  (maptask)

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Thank you!
Questions?