TOBI: Bi-Tonal Pitch Accents (the exciting conclusion!) February 4, 2016

A Modest Agenda Production exercise #1 is due! I’ll get you comments on those and on your first course project report on Tuesday. (Language breakdown on next slide!) Now let’s walk through the rest of the TOBI paradigm...

Languages! Hungarian3 Mandarin3 Arabic2 Polish2 Urdu2 Filipino/Tagalog2 Amharic Bosnian Czech German Punjabi Romanian Russian Seychellois Creole Sicilian Spanish Taiwanese-Hokkien Ukrainian

TOBI, so far 1.Pitch Accents H* and L* 2.Phrase Accents H- and L- 3.Boundary Tones H% and L% 4.Break Indices 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 5.Downstepping and Upstepping

Bitonal Pitch Accents In addition to H* and L*, there are three bitonal pitch accents. Here are the first two: L + H* L* + H The starred element denotes the tone which is associated with the stressed syllable. L + H* = high peak on stressed syllable, preceded by a sharp rise in pitch. L* + H = low pitch target on stressed syllable, followed by a sharp rise in pitch.

H* vs. L + H* Marianna won it. H* L + H* Note: informative vs. contrastive function

L* vs. L* + H Only a millionaire. Marianna made the marmalade? L + H*L* + HL-H% L* H-H%

L + H* vs. L* + H There’s a lovely one in Bloomingdale’s. L* + H L + H*

Filling the Gap Another feature of phrase accents is that they fill in the gap between the nuclear accent and the boundary of the intermediate phrase. L* + H L- H%

More Downstepping Bitonal pitch accents can also undergo downstepping. L + H* L + !H* L + !H*L-L%

H + !H* The final pitch accent in the TOBI inventory is H+!H*. This one often appears at the beginning of phrases.

Pitch-Accents Round-up There are five pitch accents: H* L* L + H* L* + H H + !H* The * attaches to stressed syllables. The final pitch accent in an intonational phrase is the nuclear accent. Generally perceived as more prominent.

Practice Time… Bi-Tonal pitch accent practice: ublic_html/ling441/TOBIlab4.html