Intonation Patterns in Tyrolean German

Intonation Patterns in Tyrolean German

Author: Geoffrey Barker

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 9780820468372

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Accompanying CD-ROM contains ... an electronic text and sound files to give the reader access to the speech samples." -- p. [xv].


Swiss German Intonation Patterns

Swiss German Intonation Patterns

Author: Adrian Leemann

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9027234906

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Switzerland is renowned for having a diverse linguistic and dialectal landscape in a comparatively small and confined space. Possibly, this is one of the reasons why Swiss German dialects have been investigated thoroughly on various linguistic levels. Nevertheless, natural speech intonation has, until today, not been examined systematically. The aim of this study is to analyze natural Swiss German fundamental frequency behavior according to linguistic, paralinguistic, and extralinguistic variables, using statistical tests against the backdrop of detecting dialect-specific patterns as well as cross-dialectal differences. The intonation analyses were conducted with the mathematically-formulated Command-Response model. This is the first large-scale study that applies this framework on a large corpus of natural, dialectal speech. This contribution provides a holistic account of the truly multilayered features of natural speech intonation and brings to light detailed underlying patterns of Swiss German dialectal fundamental frequency behavior. The book is mainly targeted at linguists, speech scientists, as well as dialectologists.


L2 Spanish and Italian intonation

L2 Spanish and Italian intonation

Author: Andrea Pešková

Publisher: Language Science Press

Published: 2023-10-31

Total Pages: 390

ISBN-13: 3961104182

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The main aim of this book is to contribute to our understanding of the acquisition of second language intonation, by comparing Czech learners of Spanish with German learners of Spanish and Czech learners of Italian. By means of a large production database, the study seeks to uncover how L1-to-L2 intonational transfer works and what role prosodic (dis)similarities between languages play. Contrary to most previous research, the work presents an original multidirectional cross-linguistic comparison and examines different types of sentence, such as neutral and non-neutral statements, yes/no questions, wh-questions, exclamatives and vocatives. The findings reveal positive and negative transfer from L1 to L2, and the formation of mixed patterns as well as native-like patterns, which are mainly constrained by linguistic factors such as the type of sentence and the position of the tonal event in the utterance. The results are discussed within Mennen’s (2015) L2 Intonation Learning theory and lead to the formulation of a Developmental L2 Intonation Hypothesis that makes several generalizations to characterize interlanguage intonation. This volume not only represents a step forward in the study of the acquisition of L2 intonation in general but also offers valuable findings that can be directly or indirectly applied in the classroom and will hopefully inspire further research.


Experimental Studies in Word and Sentence Prosody

Experimental Studies in Word and Sentence Prosody

Author: Carlos Gussenhoven

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009-02-26

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 3110207575

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume presents 14 experimental studies of lexical tone and intonation in a wide variety of languages. Six papers deal with the discriminability or the function of intonation contours and lexical tones in specific languages, as established on the basis of listener responses, as well as with brain activation patterns resulting from the perception of tonal and intonational stimuli. The remaining eight papers report on detailed phonetic findings on a variety of tonal phenomena in a number of languages, including declination in tone languages, final lowering, consonant-tone interactions and pitch target alignment.


Theories and Methods

Theories and Methods

Author: Peter Auer

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2009-12-22

Total Pages: 910

ISBN-13: 311022027X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The dimensions of time and space fundamentally cause and shape the variability of all human language. To reduce investigation of this insight to manageable proportions, researchers have traditionally concentrated on the “deepest” dialects. But it is increasingly apparent that, although most people still speak with a distinct regional coloring, the new mobility of speakers in recently industrialized and postindustrial societies and the efflorescence of communication technologies cannot be ignored. This has given rise to a reconsideration of the relationship between geographical place and cultural space, and the fundamental link between language and a spatially bounded territory. Language and Space: An International Handbook of Linguistic Variation seeks to take full account of these developments in a comprehensive, theoretically rich way. The introductory volume examines the concept of space and linguistic approaches to it, the structure and dynamics of language spaces, and relevant research methods. A second volume offers the first thorough exploration of the interplay between linguistic investigation and cartography, and subsequent volumes uniformly document the state of research into the spatial dimension of particular language groupings. Key features: comprehensive coverage of the field in terms of theory and methods the unique volume stands alone, since it neither is a handbook of dialectology or of areal linguistics, nor a handbook on language variation alone gathers together a great number of distinguished scholars and experts in the field


Intonation in Romance

Intonation in Romance

Author: Sónia Frota

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2015-06-04

Total Pages: 500

ISBN-13: 0191508489

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers the first comprehensive description of the prosody of nine Romance languages that takes into account internal dialectal variation. Teams of experts examine the prosody of Catalan, French, Friulian, Italian, Occitan, Portuguese, Romanian, Sardinian, and Spanish using the Autosegmental Metrical framework of intonational phonology and the Tones and Breaks Indices (ToBI) transcription system. The chapters all share a common methodology, based on a common Discourse Completion Task questionnaire, and provide extensive empirical data. The authors then analyse how intonation patterns work together with other grammatical means such as syntactic constructions and discourse particles in the linguistic marking of a varied set of sentence types and pragmatic meanings across Romance languages. The ToBI prosodic systems and annotations proposed for each language are based both on a phonological analysis of the target language as well as on the shared goal of using ToBI analyses that are comparable across Romance languages. This book will pave the way for more systematic typological comparisons of prosody across both Romance and non-Romance languages.


The Intonational Phonology of Swabian and Upper Saxon

The Intonational Phonology of Swabian and Upper Saxon

Author: Frank Kügler

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter

Published: 2011-07-11

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 3110932210

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The study employs an autosegmental-metrical model of intonation to propose an intonational grammar of Swabian and Upper Saxon German, respectively. The analysis is guided by the assumption that each dialect exhibits a specific distinct intonation. The phonological analysis is comparative in nature: the implementation of accents are compared between the dialects in terms of tonal alignment and excursion. In fact, the phonetic data present evidence for the phonological analysis in that the individual tonal categories differ significantly from each other. In addition, a functional analysis of the intonation contours provides further evidence for the phonological analysis. Based on the assumption that nuclear contours convey intonational meaning, these meanings are analysed and compared. A certain meaning can be attributed to intonation contours that differ phonologically between the two dialects. However, the general shape of contours and its association with meaning has been proved to be identical in the two dialects and compared to a similar analysis of intonational meaning of British English. This comprehensive study of dialect intonation contributes to improve our understanding of intonational phonology.


Phonological and phonetic competence: between grammar, signal processing, and neural activity

Phonological and phonetic competence: between grammar, signal processing, and neural activity

Author: Ulrike Domahs

Publisher: Frontiers Media SA

Published: 2016-06-10

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 288919809X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The starting point for this Research Topic was a Priority Programme on experimental research in phonology and phonetics which was funded by the German Science Foundation (DFG) from 2006 to 2013. Based on this programme, the aim of this Research Topic is to draw together empirical work in the field of segmental and prosodic processing and representation and phonological theory. Contributions are encouraged that focus on the exploration of human cognitive, articulatory and perceptual abilities dealing with all types of phonetic and phonological entities. More specifically, papers are encouraged that address the interface of the speech sound systems investigated in phonology, the representation about articulation, perception, acquisition and processing established in phonetics and psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics. Topics of investigation could be: (1) phonological representations in the mental lexicon – specified minimally in terms of categorical phonological information or as variable phonetic imprint of the occurrences in the input, (2) sounds and sound-changing processes – systemic and functional aspects, (3) prosodic units such as syllables and metrical feet, as well as the phonological phrases that are connected to syntactic units of the sentence – systemic- properties, processing and phonetic consequences, (4) tones as building blocks of the sentence melody – their relation to the level of linguistic expressions on the one hand, their phonetic realisation (e.g., tonal height and contours) and perception on the other hand. Experimental contributions making use of behavioural methods including eye movement studies and methods like EEG, fMRI, MEG and EPA to investigate production and perception of phonetic and phonological entities are particularly welcome. We welcome original research articles, reviews, theory articles, methodological articles, as well as brief commentaries/opinion pieces (for further information see here).