…It’s how you say it

1. …It’s how you say it Julia Hirschberg CS 4706

2. Intonation Features • Intonational Contours • Pitch accents (f0, intensity,duration) • Phrasing (pause, f0, duration) • Minor (intermediate) phrases • Major (intonational) phrases/breath groups • Other Pitch variation (f0) • Pitch range • Final lowering • Intensity/loudness (rms,db)

3. Timing • Speaking rate (syls per sec) • Pausal duration • Voice quality (degree/manner of glottal closure) • Hoarseness, breathiness • Pressed, creaky, tense, harsh, whispery voice

4. Intonation and Syntactic Structure • PP attachment: • You should buy the ticket with the discount coupon. • Clause attachment • If you need me when you get there call me. • Modifier scope: • This fare is restricted to retired politicians and civil servants • Relative clauses • My friend who likes to cook came to visit.

5. Acoustic/Prosodic Phenomena • Phrasing • Accent • Speaking rate We only suspected they all knew that a burglary had been committed. Simple complement Parenthetical Right node raising

6. Intonation and Semantics • Scope ambiguities • Negation You aren’t booked through Rome because of the fare. • Quantifiers John only introduced Mary to Sue. • Modals Dogs must be carried.

7. Acoustic/Prosodic Phenomena • Accent • Phrasing

8. Intonation and Discourse • Information status • Given/new information • S: Do you need a return ticket. • U: No, thanks, I don’t need a return. • Contrast (narrow focus) • U: No, thanks, I don’t need a RETURN…. (I need a time schedule, receipt,…) • Discourse markers Now what I’d like is a nice piece of pizza. Whatever I said I’d like a pizza.

9. Reference resolution • Strict/sloppy interpretations of ellipsis People who live in Los Angeles adore it’s beaches and so do people who live in New York. George likes his mother and so does Sue. George did his homework and so did Sue. • Speech acts (statements, questions, requests) That’ll be credit card Can you open that window

10. Discourse/topic structure I’m afraid we don’t have time to finish the experiment today. What a shame. We can’t pay you the $10. Can you come back tomorrow?

11. Acoustic/Prosodic Phenomena • Pitch range, final lowering • Timing • Intonational contour, phrasing, pitch accent

12. ‘Paralinguistic’ Information • Emotion (anger, happiness, love) • Propositional attitude (uncertainty) Did you feed the animals? I fed the goldfish (Rise/Fall/Rise) • Level of speaker engagement Really REALLY • Personality

13. How do these phenomena generalize? • Across individuals and groups? • Across languages? • Across cultures?

14. Prosodic Disambiguation of Syntactic and Semantic Ambiguity • Intonational disambiguation across languages: Spanish, Italian and English (w/Avesani & Prieto) William isn’t drinking because he’s unhappy

15. The Phenomenon • Bill doesn’t drink because he’s unhappy. • The presence of none of the professors will embarrass her. • He only wounded Anne. • He even embraced the policeman. • He managed to find the woman with the binoculars. • He had spoken to her quite clearly. • The professor who loves jelly beans died in terrible agony.

16. The Issues • Do speakers consistently disambiguate potentially ambiguous utteranced intonationally? • Do native speakers of different languages employ similar methods of disambiguation for similar ambiguities?

17. Studies • Avesani et al 1995; Hirschberg&Avesani 1997 • Production studies comparing English, Italian and Spanish speakers (4 per language) and then English and Italian • Potentially ambiguous utterances embedded in contexts to disambiguate:

18. English I know William very well. Since his girlfriend left him, he’s done nothing but drink. It’s been such a long time since his separation, that he’s used to living alone. Now, William doesn’t drink because he’s unhappy. He drinks because he’s an alcoholic. There’s something about William that puzzles me. When he’s happy, he has a good time with his friends, and certainly he doesn’t dislike drinking. I think I understand what’s wrong. William doesn’t drink because he’s unhappy.

19. Spanish Conozco a Guillermo muy bien. Desde que su novia le dejo, no ha hecho nada mas que beber. Despues de tanto tiempo de su separacion, se ha acostumbrado a vivir solo. Ahora, Guillermo no bebe porque esta triste. Simplement, porque es un alcoholico. Ha algo de Guillermo que no me convence. Cuando le veo feliz, se que se lo pasa, bien con sus amigos, y que no le desagrada beber. Creo que se lo que le pasa. Guillermo no bebe porque esta triste.

20. Analysis • Target utterances excised and labeled for • Intonational contour • Relative prominence of pitch accents • Different ambiguity contexts compared within languages to find common patterns • Common patterns compared across languages

21. Results • Scope of negation similarly disambiguated between wide and narrow readings by variation of intonational phrasing (one phrase vs. two) • Spanish and Italian speakers also varied nuclear stress placement (on verb for wide) • English speakers also used continuation rise for wide, falling for narrow Bill doesn’t drink because he’s unhappy. •PP-attachment disambiguated by phrasing variation (for Italian speakers)

22. Quantifier scope disambiguated by varying nuclear stress placement and phrases (for Italian, Spanish, 2 English subjects) • Association with focus: only consistently disambiguated by all three

23. How do other languages use intonation to convey information? • Syntactic ambiguity • Semantic ambiguity • Discourse phenomena • ‘Paralinguistic’ information

24. Next class • Readings: Johnson, Chapters 1 and 2