Anchoring effects in Spanish

Pilar Prieto and Francisco Torreira

(ICREA-UAB & ULB) 2004 TIE Workshop

Santorini, September 11-13, 2004

Invariance in scaling and alignment Increasing evidence that LH points in the tonal

space behave as phonological (ie., aligned and scaled in extremely consistent ways): L values aligned with onset of accented

syllable (Prieto et al. 1995, Arvaniti et al. 2001, ...)

H peak height predicted by constant downstep ratio (Liberman and Pierrehumbert 1994, Prieto et al. 1995, ...)

Anchoring Hypothesis Recent research suggests that when prosodic effects are excluded alignment of F0 targets is governed by segmental or syllabic anchoring.

Strict alignment effects are pervasive under changes of syllabic/segmental structure and speech rate (Arvaniti & Ladd 1995 Greek; Ladd et al. 1999 English; Xu 1998 Chinese; Schepman et al. subm Dutch; Atterer & Ladd, to appear, German).

Ls and Hs are anchored to specific points in the segmental structure, regardless of segmental or syllable structure composition.

Goals of the study Test the segmental and syllabic anchoring

hypothesis for H prenuclear peaks in Spanish Given the same prosodic context, is H anchored

to the segmentals or to the syllable, regardless of.. segmental composition in the syllable? syllable structure? speech rate?

Experimental Design

Experiment 1 focuses on the effects of segmental and syllabic composition on prenuclear peak placement.

Experiment 2 focuses on the effects of syllable structure and speech rate on prenuclear peak placement.

Experimental Design, 2

Contour typically found in read speech: initial prenuclear H does not exhibit peak displacement.

Subjects: 3 young female speakers of Peninsular Spanish.

Labeling Scheme Key points manually placed:

Segmental landmarks (in ms): Onset of every target segment of accented and

postaccented syllables (o, c0, v0, (k0), c1, v1, c2) at the beginning of segmental landmarks

End of word (ew) Phrase-initial and final points (only Exp 2)

Pitch landmarks: L, H (-4% of f0 range after f0 peak)

Example of prenuclear LH*Time (s)0.425 1.140

3000

o c0 v0 c1 v1 c2

L H eu

E m i l io Ro

175

250

200

220

240

Time (s)0.425 1.14

Beginning of the sentence Emilio Rodríguez terminó ayer (02b, Raquel 2rep)

Time (s)0.425 1.140

3000

o c0 v0 c1 v1 c2

L H eu

E m i l io Ro

175

250

200

220

240

Time (s)0.425 1.14

Experiment 1 GOAL: test the effects of segmental and

syllabic composition on prenuclear peak placement.

4 speakers of Castilian Spanish read a corpus of 96 sentences exhibiting the phonological variety needed to test our hypothesis

A total of 432 tokens (48 utterances x 3 speakers x 3 repetitions)

Coda

No Coda

sylstruc

Linear Regression through the Origin

100,00

200,00

300,00

hd

elay

hdelay = 0,84 * syldur

hdelay = 1,07 * syldur

Eva Raquel

Silvia

hdelay = 0,70 * syldur

hdelay = 0,94 * syldur

100,00 150,00 200,00 250,00 300,00

syldur

100,00

200,00

300,00

hd

elay

hdelay = 0,69 * syldur

hdelay = 0,90 * syldur

Effects of syllable duration

Very high positive correlation between syllable duration and H delay

H is retracted in closed syllables

Effects of syllable structure

647061 667165N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

95

% C

I H

TO

EV

0

50

40

30

20

10

0

-10

-20

-30

-40

-50

SYLSTRUC

Coda

No Coda

• Closed syllables display a significantly later H alignment than open syllables for the 3 speakers

•A two-way ANOVA showed significant effects for both SYLSTRUC and SPEAKER (p<0.000), plus an interaction between the two (p=0.009)

Effects of segmental composition /length

454738 192321 667167N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

95

% C

I H

DE

LA

Y

240

220

200

180

160

140

C0V0LENGTH

other

long

short

•All syllables are open

•Long = complex onset + low/mid vowel

ex: Hablado

•Short = simple onset + high vowel

ex: Paulina

Effects of coda type

444743 222422 647061N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

95

% C

I H

DE

LA

Y

220

210

200

190

180

170

160

150

CODATYPE

no coda

lateral

nasal444743 222422 647061N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

95

% C

I H

TO

EV

0

50

40

30

20

10

0

-10

-20

-30

CODATYPE

l

n

Separate two-way ANOVAs revealed significant effects for SPEAKER (p<0.000), CODATYPE (p<0.000) both for hdelay and htoev0. For hdelay/codatype an interaction between SPEAKER and CODATPE was found (p<0.013). No significant interaction (p=0.097) was found in the case of htoev0.

Conclusions (Exp. 1) Experiment 1 suggests a ‘loose’ alignment

towards the end of v0 depending on the following factors:

Syllable duration: Durations of onset and vowel have a linear effect on H placement.

Syllable structure: Closed syllables display a significant later alignment than open syllables.

Segmental composition: Coda type has an effect on peak alignment, as peaks align some ms later in nasal codas than in lateral codas.

Experiment 2 GOAL: test the effects of syllable structure and

speech rate on prenuclear H placement. Same 3 speakers of Castilian Spanish read twice

16 target syllables in proparoxytone words, at a normal, fast and slow rates.

A total of 288 utterances (16 utterances x 3 speech rates x 3 speakers x 2 repetitions).

Speech materials The database consisted of a total of 16 test

proparoxytonic words, divided in 2 groups: open vs. closed syllables.

Open La lámina blanca está en la mesa

El Málaga B jugará la final

La Mónica hija no vendrá

La nómina suya parece mayor

El nódulo central tiene averías

Closed Mi lánguido niño no se encuentra bien

Al Ándalus árabe y Castilla cristiana

El ámbito suyo es muy interesante

La mándola mágica suena muy bien

El nórdico blanco le costó mucho

Effects of syllable duration High correlation (around 0,90) between syllable

duration and H delay for the 3 speakers (exc 1 case) Less delay in syllables with no coda

SPEAKER: Eva

Syllable Duration (ms)

4003002001000

H D

elay

(m

s)

260

240

220

200

180

160

140

120

SYLSTRUC

No Coda

Coda

SPEAKER: Raquel

Syllable Duration (ms)

5004003002001000

H D

elay

(m

s)

400

300

200

100

0

SYLSTRUC

No Coda

Coda

SPEAKER: Silvia

Syllable Duration (ms)

280

260

240

220

200

180

160

140

120

100

H D

elay

(m

s)

220

200

180

160

140

120

100

80

SYLSTRUC

No Coda

Coda

Effects of syllable structure Peaks more retracted into

the syllable in closed syllables; differences are statistically significant for the 3 speakers

No strict anchoring at end of syllable

484848 484848N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

Dis

tan

ce E

nd

-Syl

l (m

s)

40

20

0

-20

-40

-60

-80

-100

SYLSTRUC

Coda

No Coda

No anchoring at syllable or vowel ends

Peaks signif. displaced to the right in closed syllables (t-test significances at p < 0,0001)

No anchoring at end of V

484848 484848N =

SPEAKER

SilviaRaquelEva

Dis

tan

ce E

nd

-V (

ms)

80

60

40

20

0

-20

-40

SYLSTRUC

Coda

No Coda

Effects of speech rate

As expected, speech rate (fast, normal, slow) had a significant effect on utterance length (in ms). ANOVA significant at 0,0001 for each speaker.

323232 323232 323232N =

SPEECH RATE

slownormfast

Utt

era

nce

Le

ng

th (

ms)

3500

3000

2500

2000

1500

1000

SPEAKER

Eva

Raquel

Silvia

Effects of speech rate, 2 Peaks are retracted as speech rate decreases, for the 3 speakers. ANOVA shows statistically significant differences for 2 speakers

323232 323232 323232N =

SPEECH RATE

slownormfast

Dis

tanc

e E

nd-V

(m

s)

80

60

40

20

0

-20

-40

-60

SPEAKER

Eva

Raquel

Silvia323232 323232 323232N =

SPEECH RATE

slownormfast

Dis

tan

ce E

nd

-Syl

l (m

s)

60

40

20

0

-20

-40

-60

-80

-100

-120

SPEAKER

Eva

Raquel

Silvia

Conclusion (Exp. 2)

Exp. 2 also shows a ‘loose’ alignment towards the end of v0 depending on the following factors:

Duration of the syllable: of the syllable is positively correlated with H delay

Syllable structure: Closed syllables display a significant later alignment than open syllables.

Speech rate: peaks are retracted as speech rate decreases (fast > normal > slow).

General conclusion Strong version of the ‘segmental anchoring’ or

‘syllabic anchoring’ hypothesis cannot be maintained. Prenuclear peaks in Spanish ‘loosely’ anchored at ends

of V0, depending on: Syllable duration Syllable structure Speech rate Coda type

The 4 factors significantly contribute to linear models of peak placement, the first 2 being the most relevant (R2 = 80-90%).