Initial Rises and Discourse

J.-M Marandin & J. German

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Phrasing in French

Hierarchy of phrasing:

– Bottom level: Accentual phrase

– Top level: Intonation phrase

– Intermediate level (no consensus, several proposals: Di Cristo, Delais & Post, Jun&Fougeron, Michelas & D’Imperio, etc.)

Part 1. Initial rises in the literature

NB. : For time considerations, we cannot give Astesano’s (and colleagues) studies the place they deserve. They should be included in a complete

overview of the issue.

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Initial rises

AP structure (Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006)

(1) )content word

(L)Hi (L)H*

where (L)H* is obligatory while (L)Hi is optional

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Types of initial rises

• Accent mélodique: left edge marker whose occurrence is correlated to ‘chunking’ reasons (length of APs, tempo, etc.).

(1) (Les dé clarations) (du président) } n’ont pas convaincu …. Hi Hi

• Accent d’insistance: emphasis/emotion marker.

(2) (Ton pull est) (for midable)

Hi (3) (Il a fait) (une tempête) (hier soir)

Hi

NB.: The accent d’insistance is described as higher in pitch, longer in duration than the accent mélodique.

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Initial rises and information/discourse structure

Initial rises have been observed in relation to discourse/information marking:

- In relation to Information (narrow) Focus (i. a. Di Cristo 1999).

- In relation to Discourse (thematic) Structure (Beyssade et al. 2005, Marandin et al. 2002)

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Initial Rises and Information Focus

Initial Rises may occur at the left edge of Narrow Information Focus.

(4) A.: Il a acheté un livre qui parle de quoi?

B.: i. Il a acheté un livre sur la cuisine provenCAL(e)ii. Il a acheté un livre sur la cuisine provenCAL(e)

Di Cristo’s analysis:- (4.B.i) is a case of « marquage simple » of the Focus; (4.B.ii) a case of bilateral

marking. - Initial rises are not necessarily linked to Kontrast (activated set of alternatives).- Initial rises in relation to Information Focus are analyzed as accents mélodiques

(wrapping the focal XP).

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Initial rises and discourse structure

Initial rises occur at the left edge of Thematic Shifters.

(5) A.: Que fumaient les chanteurs de rock ? B.: i. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettes

ii. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettesiii. Les chanteurs anglais fumaient des cigarettes

--> A.: et les français?(6) A.: Qui est venu?

B.: Bernadette est venue --> A.: et les autres?

Beyssade’s et al. analysis:- Thematic shifters are Büring’s S-Topics (i. a. 2003).- They bring about a « residual topic effect »: they call for another questions thematically related to the question

they are an answer to. Answers (5.B.i,ii,iii) call for « What did singers of other countries smoke? » - They belong to a dimension orthogonal to the Focus-Ground partition. Thus, they occur either in the ground (5)

or the focal part (6) of the answer.

- They correspond to T-accents (vs F-accents) in Büring’s framework.

Part 2. Initial rises: new data

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Introduction

Initial rises are observed in two corpora elicited in controlled conditions (script-based production experiments):

– In interrogatives: German & D’Imperio 2010

– In declaratives: Beyssade et al. 2010

Those recent observations – obtained in controlled settings– reinforce the

observations reported in the literature (based on a competence basis).

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

Wide agreement that phonetically, right edge of contrastive focus is marked, with reasonable reliability, by a transition from regular (rhythmic, syntactic) phrasing, to a deaccented region

Are there cues to the left edge?

Traditional assumption: Hi (initial rise of Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006) is “optional” feature of AP

Hypothesis: Hi (initial rise of Jun & Fougeron 2002, Welby 2006) marks or is at least associated with the left edge of a contrastive focus in qu-interrogatives.

Fix the right edge of the contrastive region and systematically manipulate the location of the left edge for textually identical pairs of target sentences

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

(1) i. Qui a commandé le merlan à la sauce citron ce soir?

ii. Qui a commandé le merlan [aux navets]F ce soir?

iii. Qui a commandé le merlan aux câpres ce soir?

(2) i. Qui a commandé l’entrecôte ce soir?

ii. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux navets]F ce soir?

iii. Qui a commandé les gambas ce soir?

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

Robust predictor of Hi occurrence is phrase length: APs containing more syllables are more likely to contain Hi

How are the two predictors related?

– To extent that Hi marks focus, does phrase length interfere with this tendency?

– Are very short and very long phrases insensitive to focus?

(1) a. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux navets]AP ce soir?

b. Qui a commandé [le merlan aux macadamias]AP ce soir?

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

84% of productions included an AP boundary between the NP and the PP

How was the likelihood for Hi on PP affected by phrase length and focus?

[Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]Hi? H*H*H*

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

[Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]Hi? H*H*H*

PP (I2) initial rises

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

PP focus (narrow) DO focus (wide)

2 syllables4 syllables

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German & D’Imperio (2010)

[Qui a commandé] [le merlan] [aux navets] [ce soir]

Hi? H*H*H*

NP (I1) initial rises

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

PP focus (narrow) DO focus (wide)

2 syllables4 syllables

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IR in declaratives

Partial question:

(ii) Qu'as-tu visionné la nuit dernière ? What did you screen last night?

Broad question:

(iii) Où en es-tu dans ton enquête ? What’s up with your investigation

(iv) J’ai visionné les vidéos la nuit dernièreI screened the videos last night

Initial rises are observed in a corpus elicited to study the marking of XPs resolving questions (= Information Focus).

Design of the experiment: Subjects are presented with the description of a context (i) and a question: either a partial question (ii) or a broad question (iii). They are asked to read aloud an answer (iv), as if they were actually participating in the dialogue.

(i) Context: Richard is a policeman. He has to treat various documents (films, leaflets, K7s) seized in a terrorist cache.

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IR in declaratives. Results (1)

Pattern A

Nuclear Low at the right edge of the Direct Object NP (DO)

Pattern B

Nuclear Low at the right edge of the Object NP + initial accentuation of the DO

Pattern C

Initial accentuation of DO + register enhancement of DO (Nuclear Low at the right edge of the sentence)

Pattern D

Nuclear Low at the right edge of the sentence

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IR in declaratives. Illustration (2)

A B

C D

Illustration: J’ai élargi le gilet avec du velours noir. I let out the vest with black velvet.

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IR in declaratives. Synthesis

Answers to Placement of the nuclear pitch accent (mostly L* in the corpus)

Initial rise on DO

Right edge of DO

Right edge of S

Partial questions

60% 30,8% 72,6%

Broad questions

40% 69,2% 32,7%

Part 3. Questions

Part of a research program on the links between IRs and Discourse

….

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Question 1

Are the IRs found in questions and in answers the same ?

Potential arguments:- Phonetic: Same phonetic realization ?

NB.: Identification of IRs should be unified in the two studies.

- Functional: Same role?

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Functional role of IRs (1)

IRs occur on DOs in approx. 1/3 of the answers to broad questions.

- Beyssade’s et al. conjecture: thematic shifters?

(8) A. Où en es-tu dans ton enquête?

B. [J’ai visionné [les vidéos]ST la nuit dernière]F

(9) Top question: What’s up with your investigations?

Answer: I screened [the videos] Subordinate-Q.: What about the videos? last night

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Functional role of IRs (2)

IRs occur on DOs on approx. 2/3 of answers to partial questions:Several analysis possible:- Thematic shifters

(10) A. Qu’as-tu visionné la nuit dernière?

B. J’ai visionné [les vidéos]ST, F la nuit dernière

(11) Top question: What did you screen last night

Answer: I screened [the videos] Subordinate-Q.: What about the videos? last night

- Or: Marking of the resolving XP- Or (Current conjecture) :

IRs are functionally underspecified. They mark an XP as distinguished in a prosodic domain.

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Functional role of IRs (3)

Corroboration (data currently under verification)

The narrow association of ad-verbial seulement (only) with a dependant of the verb is only deterministic when the dependant shows IR.

(12) J’ai seulement vu [Bernadette] à Paris=

‘I saw nobody else than Bernadette’

Two cases:

Pattern B Pattern C

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Question 2

Are the IRs linked to Discourse/Information the same as accent mélodique or accent d’insistance ?

Why is the question relevant? « Accent placement in English is determined by a number of different independent factors, which include focushood (as in focus-ground), interestingness or informativeness, emotiveness and others. [..] Pitch accents are available as a structural resource and they appear to be exploited for a number of different uses. Some of them have to do with the realization of focushood and linkhood …  » (Vallduví & Zacharsky 1993).

Questions to be solved:- Are the differences pertaining to level of pitch or duration stable and systematic?

If yes, are they categorical ?- Conjecture:

IR marking the left edge of AP ≠IR marking the left edge of some higher phrase.

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References

• Astesano C. (2001) Rythme et accentuation en français. Paris: L’Harmattan.• Beyssade, C., E. Delais-Roussarie, J. Doetjes, J.-M. Marandin & A. Rialland (2004). Prosody and Information in

French. Corblin, F. & H. de Swart (eds.), Handbook of French Semantics. CSLI, pp. 477-499.• Beyssade, C., B. Hemforth, J.-M. Marandin & C. Portes (2008). The prosody of restrictive seulement in French. Third

TIE Conference on Tone and Intonation. Barcelone, pp. 15-17 September 2008.• Beyssade, C., B. Hemforth, J.-M. Marandin & C. Portes (2010). Prosodic markings of Information Focus in French.

Proceedings of IDP 2009. • Büring, D. (2003). On D-trees, beans, and B-accents. Linguistics & Philosophy 26:5, pp. 511-545.• Delais-Roussarie E & B. Post (2008). Unités prosodiques et grammaire de l’intonation. Proceedings of JEP 2008. • Di Cristo, A. (1999). Le cadre accentuel du français contemporain, Langues 3(2), pp.184-205, Langues 4(2), pp. 258-

267.• German J. & M. D’Imperio (2010). Focus, phrase length, and the distribution of phrase-initial rises in French.

Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. • Jun, S.-A & C. Fougeron (2002). Realizations of Accentual Phrases in French. Probus 14:147-172.• Marandin J.-M., Beyssade, C., E. Delais-Roussarie, & A. Rialland (2002). Discourse Marking in French: C accents

and Discourse Moves. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2002, Aix-en-Provence.• Michelas A & M. D’Imperio (2010). Durational cues and prosodic phrasing in French: evidence for the intermediate

phrase. Proceedings of Speech Prosody 2010. • Vallduví Enric & Ron Zacharski 1993, Accenting Phenomena, Association with Focus and the Recursiveness of

Focus-Ground. Proceedings of the 9th Amsterdam colloquium, U. of Amsterdam, ed. by P. Dekker & al.• Welby P. (2006) French intonational structure: Evidence from tonal alignment. Journal of Phonetics 34(3): 343-371.

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Doc. Answers to partial questions

Pattern NPA placement

IR (+ register change)

A 11% Right edge of DO:

60%B 49% IR on DO:

72,6%C 23,6% Final (right edge of S):

40%D 16,4%

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Doc. Answers to broad questions

Pattern NPA placement

IR (+ register change)

A 17,3% Right edge of DO:

30,8%B 13,5% IR on DO:

32,7%C 19,2% Final (right edge of S):

69,2%D 50%