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part3 - 23. Pragmatics and Intonation, Materiały naukowe, The Hanbook of Pragmatics

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23. Pragmatics and Intonation : The Handbook of Pragmatics : Blackwell Reference O...
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23. Pragmatics and Intonation
JULIA HIRSCHBERG
Subject
Theoretical Linguistics
Ç
Pragmatics
Key
-Topics
Topics
language
DOI:
10.1111/b.9780631225485.2005.00025.x
1 Introduction
Introduction
There is a long tradition of research on the role of prosodic variation in the interpretation of a wide
variety of linguistic phenomena (Ladd 1980, Bolinger 1986, 1989, Ladd 1996). Whether a speaker
says (where Ñ|Ò is read as a prosodic boundary and capitals denote emphasis) John only introduced
MARY to Sue or John only introduced Mary to SUE; Bill doesn't drink | because he's unhappy or Bill
doesn't drink because he's unhappy can, in the appropriate context, favor different interpretations of
the same sentence. Since the interpretation of such intonational variations is indeed dependent upon
contextual factors, we will define intonational ÑmeaningÒ as essentially pragmatic in nature.
In this chapter, we will provide an overview of various types of intonational variation and the
interpretations such variation has been found to induce. While the very large literature on intonational
meaning from the linguistics, computational linguistics, speech, and psycholinguistic communities
makes it impossible to provide an exhaustive list of relevant research efforts on the topic, examples
of such work will be provided in each section. In section 2, we will first describe the components of
intonational variation that will be addressed in this chapter, employing as a framework for
intonational description the ToBI system for representing the intonation of standard American English.
In section 3, we will survey some of the ways intonation can influence the interpretation of syntactic
phenomena, such as attachment. In section 4 we will examine intonational variation and semantic
phenomena such as scope ambiguity and association with focus. In section 5, we will turn to
discourse-level phenomena, including the interpretation of pronouns, the intonational correlates of
several types of information status, the relationship between intonational variation and discourse
structure, and the role of intonational variation in the interpretation of different sorts of speech acts.
A final section will point to future areas of research in the pragmatics of intonation.
2 Intonation: Its Parts and
2 Intonation: Its Parts and Representations
Representations
To discuss prosodic variation usefully, one must choose a framework of intonational description
within which to specify the dimensions of variation. The intonational model we will assume below is
the ToBI model for describing the intonation of standard American English (Silverman et al. 1992,
Pitrelli et al. 1994).
1
The ToBI system consists of annotations at four, time-linked levels of analysis:
an
ORTHOGRAPHIC
TIER
of time-aligned words; a
TONAL
TIER
, where
PITCH
ACCENTS
,
PHRASE
ACCENTS
and
BOUNDARY
TONES
describing targets in the
FUNDAMENTAL
FREQUENCY
(f0) define intonational phrases,
following Pierrehumbert's (1980) scheme for describing American English, with some modifications; a
BREAK
INDEX
TIER
indicating degrees of junction between words, from 0 Ñno word boundaryÒ to 4 Ñfull
INTONATIONAL
PHRASE
boundary,Ò which derives from Price et al. (1990); and a
MISCELLANEOUS
TIER
, in
which phenomena such as disfluencies may be optionally marked (ordered from top to bottom in
figure 23.1
).
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Break indices define two levels of phrasing: minor or
INTERMEDIATE
PHRASE
(in Pierrehumbert's terms)
(level 3); and major or
INTONATIONAL
PHRASE
(level 4), with an associated tonal tier that describes the
phrase accents and boundary tones for each level. Level 4 phrases consist of one or more level 3
phrases, plus a high or low boundary tone (
L%) at the right edge of the phrase. Level 3 phrases
consist of one or more pitch accents, aligned with the stressed syllable of lexical items, plus a
PHRASE
ACCENT
, which also may be high (
H% or
L-). A standard declarative contour, for example, ends in
a low phrase accent and low boundary tone, and is represented by
H-) or low (
L
-
L%; a standard yes-no-question
H%. These are illustrated in
figures 23.1 and 23.2
, respectively.
2
contour ends in
H
-
Figure 23.1 A H* L
-L%
L% contour
Figure 23.1 A H* L
LL%
contour
Differences among ToBI break indices can be associated with variation in f0,
PHRASE
-
FINAL
LENGTHENING
(a lengthening of the syllable preceding the juncture point), glottalization (Ñcreaky voiceÒ) over the last
syllable or syllables preceding the break, and some amount of pause. Higher-number indices tend to
be assigned where there is more evidence of these phenomena. Phrasal tone differences are reflected
in differences in f0 target.
Pitch accents render items intonationally prominent. This prominence can be achieved via different
tone targets, as well as differences in f0 height, to convey different messages (Campbell and Beckman
1997, Terken 1997). So, items may be accented or (DEACCENTED (Ladd 1979)) and, if accented, may
bear different tones, or different degrees of prominence, with respect to other accents. In addition to
f0 excursions, accented words are usually louder and longer than their unaccented counterparts. In
addition to variation in type, accents may have different levels of prominence; i.e. one accent may be
perceived as more prominent than another due to variation in f0 height or amplitude, or to location in
the intonational phrase. Listeners usually perceive the last accented item in a phrase as the most
prominent in English. This most prominent accent in an intermediate phrase is called the phrase's
NUCLEAR ACCENT or NUCLEAR STRESS. Constraints on nuclear (sometimes termed sentence) stress
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are discussed by many authors, including Cutler and Foss (1977), Schmerling (1974, 1976), Erteschik-
Shir and Lappin (1983), and Bardovi-Harlig (1983b). Despite Bolinger's (1972b) seminal article on the
unpredictability of accent, attempts to predict accent placement from related features of the uttered
text continue, especially for purposes of assigning accent in text-to-speech systems, for example
(Altenberg 1987, Hirschberg 1993, Veilleux 1994).
Five types of pitch accent are distinguished in the ToBI scheme for American English: two simple
accents
H+!H*. As in Pierrehumbert' s system,
3
the asterisk indicates which tone is aligned with the stressed syllable of the word bearing a complex
accent. Differences in accent type convey differences in meaning when interpreted in conjunction with
differences in the discourse context and variation in other acoustic properties of the utterance. The
H* and L*, and three complex ones, L*+H,
L*+H,
L*+H, L+H*
L+H*
L+H*, and H+!H
H+!H
H*
accent is the most common accent in American English. It is modeled as a simple peak in the f0
contour, as illustrated in
figure 23.1
above; this peak is aligned with the word's stressable syllable.
H* accents are typically found in standard declarative utterances; they are commonly used to convey
that the accented item should be treated as NEW information in the discourse, and is part of what is
being asserted in an utterance (Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg 1990).
L* accents are modeled as
valleys in the f0, as shown in
figure 23.2
above.
These accents have been broadly characterized as conveying that the accented item should be treated
as salient but not part of what is being asserted (Pierrehumbert and Hirschberg 1990). As such, they
typically characterize prominent items in yes-no question contours. In addition to this use, they are
often employed to make initial prepositions or adverbs prominent or to mark DISCOURSE readings of
CUE PHRASES (see section 5.3 below). L+H
L+H
L+H* accents can be used to produce a pronounced
ÑcontrastiveÒ effect, as in (1a).
Figure 23.2
Figure 23.2 A L* H
-H contour
A L* H
H contour
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(1) The Smiths aren't inviting anybody important.
a. They invited L+H
L+H* Lorraine.
b. They invited
L+H
L*+
H Lorraine.
This complex accent, where the high tone is aligned with the stressed syllable and the f0 rise is thus
rapid, can serve to emphatically contradict the initial claim that Lorraine is unimportant and is
illustrated in
figure 23.3
. A similarly shaped accent with slightly but crucially different alignment, the
L*+
H pitch accent on Lorraine in (1b),
where the low tones is aligned with the stressed syllable, can convey uncertainty about whether or not
Lorraine is an important person. This type of accent is shown in
figure 23.4
. And H+!H
H accent, can convey still other distinctions. For example,
L*+
H+!H* accents,
realized as a fall onto the stressed syllable, are associated with some implied sense of familiarity with
the mentioned item. An example of a felicitous use of H+!H
H+!H
H+!H
H+!H* is the ÑremindingÒ case in (2) and the
accent is illustrated in
figure 23.5
.
Figure 23.3
Figure 23.3 A L+H* pitch accent
Figure 23.3
A L+H* pitch accent
(2) A: No German has ever won the Luce Prize.
B: H+!H
H+!H* Joachim's from Germany.
H+!H
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Figure 23.4
Figure 23.4 A L*+H pitch accent
A L*+H pitch accent
By way of summary,
table 23.1
provides a schematic representation of the possible contours in
Standard American English, in the ToBI system.
3 Intonation in the Interpretation of
3 Intonation in the Interpretation of Syntactic Phenomena
Syntactic Phenomena
There has been much interest among theorists over the years in defining a mapping between prosody
and syntax (Downing 1970, Bresnan 1971, Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980, Selkirk 1984, Dirksen
and Quen 1993, Prevost and Steedman 1994, Boula de Mareil and d'Alessandro 1998). Intuitively,
prosodic phrases, whether intermediate or intonational, divide an utterance into meaningful ÑchunksÒ
of information (Bolinger 1989); the greater the perceived phrasing juncture, the greater the
discontinuity between segments or constituents. While many researchers have sought to identify
simple syntactic constraints on phrase location (Crystal 1969, Cooper and Paccia-Cooper 1980,
Selkirk 1984, Croft 1995), especially for parsing (Marcus and Hindle 1990, Steedman 1991, Oehrle
1991, Abney 1995), more empirical approaches have focused upon discovering the circumstances
under which one sort of phrasing of some syntactic phenomenon will be favored over another by
speakers and perhaps differently interpreted by hearers. Corpus-based studies (Altenberg 1987,
Bachenko and Fitzpatrick 1990, Ostendorf and Veilleux 1994, Hirschberg and Prieto 1996, Fujio, et al.
1997) and laboratory experiments (Grosjean et al. 1979, Wales and Toner 1979, Gee and Grosjean
1983, Price et al. 1990, Beach 1991, Hirschberg and Avesani 1997) have variously found that the
discontinuity indicated by a phrase boundary may serve to favor various differences in the
interpretation of syntactic attachment ambiguity, for phenomena such as prepositional phrases,
relative clauses, adverbial modifiers. Moreover, it has been found that the presence or absence of a
phrase boundary can distinguish prepositions from particles and can indicate the scope of modifiers
in conjoined phrases. Some examples are found in (3)Ï(11), where boundaries are again marked by
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