Peak alignment of pre-nuclear and nuclear accents in Argentine Spanish Laura Colantoni University of Toronto

Outline Argentine Spanish intonation Argentine Spanish intonation –Controlled speech Buenos Aires Spanish: database for speech synthesis Buenos Aires Spanish: database for speech synthesis Catamarca, Mendoza, Misiones, Salta and Tucuman Spanish: database for speech recognition Catamarca, Mendoza, Misiones, Salta and Tucuman Spanish: database for speech recognition –Semi-spontaneous speech Corrientes and San Juan Spanish: Linguistic atlas of Argentina Corrientes and San Juan Spanish: Linguistic atlas of Argentina

Buenos Aires Spanish Broad focus declaratives (Colantoni & Grulekian 2004; cf. also Sosa 1999, Toledo 2000) Broad focus declaratives (Colantoni & Grulekian 2004; cf. also Sosa 1999, Toledo 2000) –Pre-nuclear accents Peak aligned within the stressed syllable Peak aligned within the stressed syllable Valley aligned within the post-tonic syllable Valley aligned within the post-tonic syllable –Nuclear accents L* (?); valley aligned within the stressed syllable L* (?); valley aligned within the stressed syllable

Pre-nuclear accents Table 1: Alignment patterns for pre-nuclear accents according to their relative position in the utterance

Pre-nuclear accents Figure 1: Early peak alignment in aplaZO ‘she/he postponed’, extracted from the sentence La justicia aplazó el referendum en el ayuntamiento ‘The court postponed the referendum in the city hall’

Nuclear accents Table 2: Alignment patterns in nuclear accents in utterance final intonational contours

Nuclear accents Figure 2: Final intonation contour extracted from the sentence Cuando sopla viento norte, cambian su comportamiento “When there is a northern wind, (people) change their behavior”

Problems Pre-nuclear accents Pre-nuclear accents –Early peak alignment: Not frequent but found in other varieties (e.g. Peruvian Spanish; cf. O’Rourke 2004) H* vs. L+H* H* vs. L+H* Nuclear accents Nuclear accents –L* described for other varieties –Probable difference in the magnitude of downstep Phonetic or phonological difference? Phonetic or phonological difference? NB: only BA Spanish; reading style NB: only BA Spanish; reading style

Other Argentine Spanish varieties On-going project (Colantoni, Enbe, and Pérez Ibáñez) On-going project (Colantoni, Enbe, and Pérez Ibáñez) Data source Data source –Database for recognition –1000 speakers –Task: sentence-reading Varieties selected Varieties selected –Catamarca –Mendoza –Misiones –Salta –Tucuman

Pre-nuclear accents Figure 3: Pre-nuclear accents (alignment patterns) in the five varieties under study

Pre-nuclear accents General tendency: General tendency: –Peak aligned within stressed syllable –Higher degree of variation (when compared to BA Spanish) in varieties under study Cross-dialectal variation: Cross-dialectal variation: –Increasing frequency of low tones aligned within the stressed syllable, especially in Catamarca, Mendoza and Tucuman

Nuclear accents Figure 4: Nuclear accents (alignment patterns) in the five varieties under study

Nuclear accents Mendoza, Misiones, (Tucuman) Mendoza, Misiones, (Tucuman) –Tendency: peak aligned within the stressed syllable Salta and Catamarca Salta and Catamarca –Tendency: low tone aligned within the stressed syllable

Problems Differences in the alignment of pre-nuclear accents Differences in the alignment of pre-nuclear accents Differences in the alignment of nuclear accents Differences in the alignment of nuclear accents –Cross-dialectal variation –Phonetic vs. phonological differences NB: NB: –Reading task –Instructions (?)

Semi-spontaneous speech Data: Data: –Linguistic atlas of Argentina –Female speakers: Corrientes (4) Corrientes (4) San Juan (2) San Juan (2) –Narratives (only statements were analyzed)

Theoretical questions Differences between formal and spontaneous speech Differences between formal and spontaneous speech Cross-dialectal differences and the AM model Cross-dialectal differences and the AM model Status of the differences observed (i.e. phonological vs. phonetic) Status of the differences observed (i.e. phonological vs. phonetic) Alignment and phonological categories Alignment and phonological categories

Pre-nuclear accents

Corrientes Late peak alignment Late peak alignment –Consistent with previous descriptions of other Spanish varieties –Similarities with Misiones Spanish (Colantoni et al.) Late peak alignment: second most frequent pattern Late peak alignment: second most frequent pattern Early peak alignment Early peak alignment –Emphasis and/or contrastive focus

Pre-nuclear accents: late peak alignment Figure 5: Late peak alignment in miRANdo, ‘looking’, Beron de Astrada (Corrientes)

Pre-nuclear accents: early peak alignment Figure 6: Early peak alignment in reIa, ‘to laugh (3ps), San Cosme (Corrientes)

San Juan Late peak alignment Late peak alignment –Again, pattern observed in other Spanish varieties –Similarities with Mendoza Spanish (Colantoni et al.) Late peak alignment: most frequent pattern for one of the speakers in the study Late peak alignment: most frequent pattern for one of the speakers in the study

Pre-nuclear accents: late peak alignment Figure 7: Late peak alignment in roBAba, ‘to steal’ (3ps, IMP), Villa Krause (San Juan)

Nuclear accents

Corrientes and San Juan Spanish Corrientes, San Juan vs. Buenos Aires Spanish Corrientes, San Juan vs. Buenos Aires Spanish –Higher frequency of peaks aligned within the stressed syllable San Juan vs. Corrientes San Juan vs. Corrientes –Peaks aligned within the stressed syllable more frequently in San Juan than in Corrientes; –Consistent with our previous analysis of Mendoza and Misiones Spanish

Nuclear accents in San Juan Spanish Figure 8: Early peak alignment in pioLIN, ‘thread’, Valle Fertil (San Juan)

Nuclear accents in Corrientes Spanish Figure 9: Early peak alignment in BAIlan, ‘to dance’ (3pp, present), B. de Astrada (Corrientes)

Concluding remarks Controlled vs. spontaneous speech Controlled vs. spontaneous speech –Preliminary data seem to indicate that tendencies observed in controlled speech are also valid for semi-spontaneous speech –Problems in the analysis of spontaneous speech Sample size Sample size Control of contextual factors Control of contextual factors Transcription Transcription

Concluding remarks Cross-dialectal studies of intonation Cross-dialectal studies of intonation –Capturing the differences with the AM model General tendencies General tendencies Is it enough? Is it enough? –Refining the labeling method –Adding duration and intensity analyses

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