1 prosody & semantics prosodie et sémantique jean-marie marandin, llf & paris vii james...

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Prosody & SemanticsProsodie et Sémantique

Jean-Marie Marandin, LLF & Paris VII

James German, LPL

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Overview

Approaches to prosody and semantics

Formal tools:

– Information structure and nuclear accent placement in English

Case study:

– Using theories of focus projection to predict pronominal reference

Phrase-initial rise in French

– Phonology of initial rise

– Initial rise and information/discourse structure

– Experimental studies

– Open questions

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Approaches to Prosody and Meaning

Observe a set of contrasting forms (variation in some dimension)

Observe a set of contrasting semantic/pragmatic/contextual conditions with which the forms covary

Generate hypotheses about how the two are related

Goal: Explain the variation, make predictions

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Phonetic variation

– Changes/movements in pitch

– Changes in duration/rhythm

– Locations of breaks and pauses

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Categories of variation (phonological)

– Levels of stress

– Units of phrasing

– Tonal categories: pitch accents, boundary tones

[the man]PrW [from Mississippi]PrW [had salmon] PrW

iP iP

H* L-

xxx

xx

xxx

H* L+H* L-H%

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Semantic/pragmatic/contextual conditions (observational)

– Truth conditions

– Linguistic contents of the discourse context

– Entailment properties of the context/common ground

Underlying categories (theoretical)

– Information structure (partitioning of the semantic contents of the utterance)

– Focus presuppositions

– Givenness

– Discourse structure (e.g., Questions Under Discussion, Contrastive Topic)

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Theory of correspondence between the semantic/pragmatic contrasts and the prosodic contrasts

– Example: The focus of an utterance must contain the nuclear pitch accent

Try to falsify the predictions of the theory

Identify cases that distinguish between the predictions of different theories

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Methods:

– Truth value judgments (introspective/quantitative)

– Felicity judgments (introspective/quantitative)

– Production bias (quantitative)

– Attentional bias (quantitative)

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Independence of the observations:

– Identify prosodic categories from the acoustic signal independently of the semantic conditions of interest

– Identify semantic/pragmatic categories from properties of the context and the textual (i.e., non-prosodic) content of the utterance

What are the specific, objectively verifiable measures that distinguish between one category and another?

– Syllable associations of peaks, valleys in the F0 trace

– Durational relationships (between phones, syllables, words)

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Phonological form versus phonetic implementation

– Segmental effects: Specific segments may introduce independent sources of variation into certain prosodic dimensions (e.g., phonemes may have distinct durational properties)

– Microprosodic perturbances: Specific segments may distort the acoustic signal in unpredictable ways (e.g., plosives introduce an F0 spike; obstruents depress the F0 contour)

– Neuromuscular performance: Phonetic outcomes do not always correspond to psycho-acoustic or neuromuscular targets (e.g., lagging F0 peaks for nuclear accents)

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Be precise about what you did (repeatability)

– “Asked naïve coders to judge the location of the most ‘prominent’ syllable in the utterance”

– “Adjacent zones of high F0 plateaus were counted as distinct pitch accents if there was an intervening valley that could not be explained by microprosodic effects”

Enough information so that (i) any correspondences can be made with other hypothesized categories and (ii) your findings will be usable for future hypothesis testing (conscilience)

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(1) Q1: Who did John praise?

A1: John praised MARY.

# A2: John PRAISED Mary.

# A3: JOHN praised Mary.

(2) Q2: Who praised Mary?

A2: JOHN praised Mary.

(3) Q3: What did John do to Mary?

A3: John PRAISED Mary.

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Observation (conservative): In direct answers to wh-questions, different patterns of nuclear accent placement are felicitous for different questions

Observation (liberal): A nuclear pitch accent always occurs within the constituent in the answer corresponding to the wh-element, and none occur outside of that constituent.

Q/A-congruence (a theory): The focused constituent of a direct answer must correspond to the wh-element of the question (where focus is a more general type of presupposition concerning the form of contextually salient alternatives to an utterance)

Focus accent (a theory): The focused constituent of an utterance must contain the most prominent syllable in the utterance.

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Theories of Accent Placement

Observation: Linguistic material that is repeated in subsequent utterances tends to be free of pitch accents (deaccented)

(4) A4: Parrots are such amazing creatures!

B4: JUDY just ADOPTED a parrot.

(5) A5: Dogs/butterflies/birds are such amazing creatures!

B5: JUDY just adopted a PARROT.

Theory: Linguistic representations (morpho-syntactic?) can be specified for whether they correspond to information that is mentioned, evoked, or otherwise salient in the discourse context

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Selkirk (1984, 1995)

– Wanted to account for focus projection effects (ex. 6-7)

– Noted the close correspondence between material that was repeated from the context (i.e., Given) and non-focused material

– F is a syntactic feature that if absent, signals that a constituent is Given, while an F-marked constituent may be Given or New

– F originates on an accented terminal node and freely “projects” sideways (internal argument to head) and upward (head to XP)

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(6) Mary bought a book about BATS.

(7) a. What did Mary buy a book about?

b. What kind of book did Mary buy?

c. What did Mary buy?

d. What did Mary do?

e. What happened?

aboutF BATSF

PPFbookF

NPF

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Selkirk (1984, 1995)

– Focus is essentially epiphenomenal: F-marked nodes that are not dominated by an F-marked constituent (FOC)

– Givenness is not something that applies only to entities

– No precise definition of Given/New; interpretation for F

– Accentuation versus nuclear accentuation (Welby 2003)

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Schwarzschild (1999)

– Focus is secondary to Givenness

– Given/New distinction applies to all syntactic units/semantic types, not just terminal elements and referring expressions

– Formal definition for Given

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Guiding fact #1: Constituents may be accented even when clearly Given (including pronouns)

(8) A: Who did John’s mother vote for?

B: She voted for MARY.

B’: She voted for JOHN.

B’’: She voted for HIM.

Selkirk (1984): Given constituents may be F-marked if contrastive

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Optimality-Theoretic framework (sort of)

Production-oriented

– Inputs: (i) a discourse context, (ii) a sentence

– Generate all ways of assigning accents (to terminal elements) and F-marking (to all constituents)

– Constrain the set of candidates to find the optimal output

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(9) An utterance U counts as Given iff it has a salient antecedent A and…

a. if U is type e, then A and U corefer;

b. otherwise: modulo -type shifting, A entails the existential F-closure of U.

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Existential F-closure (F-Clo): Replace F-marked constituents with variables of the same type and existentially close the variables

– F-closure of [John hit BillF] = x[John hit x]

– F-closure of [John [hit BillF]F] = xP[P(x)(John)] *

[John hit Sue] entails x[John hit x]

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Problem: Only sentence-level constituents correspond to propositions, so entailment is not defined in the general case

(10) Existential type shifting (ExClo): Converts expressions to the type of proposition-denoting logical forms by replacing unfilled arguments with variables and existentially closing the result

ExClo(hit) = x.y[x hit y]

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Example: Verify that [hit BillF] is Given in the context of {John hit Sue}

Step 1: ExClo([hit BillF]) = x[x hit BillF]

Step 2: F-closure of x[x hit BillF] = Yx[x hit Y]

Step 3: ExClo(hit Sue) = x[x hit Sue]

Step 4: x[x hit Sue] → Yx[x hit Y]

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GIVENNESS: If a node is not F-marked, it must be Given.

= Contrapositive: If a node is not Given, it must be F-marked

Converse: If a node is F-marked, it must be not Given

FOC (paraphrased): An F-marked node that is not immediately dominated by another F-marked node must contain an accent.

AVOIDF: Do not F-mark.

HEADARG: A head is less prominent than its internal argument.

(ACCF): If a node is accented, it must be F-marked. *

Ranking: GIVENNESS, FOC, ACCF >> AVOIDF >> HEADARG

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'Givenness' = A property of a constituent relative to a context

'GIVENNESS' = A constraint on the relationship between F-marking and the distribution of Given nodes in a syntactic representation

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Example: Which accent pattern is predicted for (ii) in the context of (i)?

(i) John hit1 Sue

(ii) John hit2 Bill.

Step 1: Bill is not Given, so it must be F-marked (by GIVENNESS)

Step 2: hit is Given, no F-marking required by GIVENNESS

ExClo(hit1) ExClo(hit2)

xy[x hit1 y] → xy[x hit2 y]

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Step 3: VP is Given

ExClo(hit1 Sue) → F-Clo(ExClo (hit2 BillF))

x[x hit1 Sue] → Yx[x hit2 Y]

Step 4: Check FOC

hit [BILL]F

Step 5: John is Given

Step 6: IP is Given

[John hit1 Sue] → Y[John hit2 Y]

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Context: John hit SueSentence: John hit Bill

GIV

EN

NE

SS F

OC

AC

C

F

AV

OID

F

HE

AD

AR

G

(a) [John hit BILLF] *

(b) [John HIT BILLF] * *

(c) [John hit Bill] *

(d) [John hit BillF] *

(e) [John HIT BillF] * *

Final output: John hit BILLF

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Excercise

Which accent pattern is predicted for (ii) in the context of (i)?

(i) Johnk hit Sue

(ii) Mary hit himk

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Excercise

him is Given since it is coreferential with John

hit2 is Given because xy[x hit1 y] → xy[x hit2 y]

[hit2 him] is not Given, because xy[x hit1 y] does not entail xy[x hit2 him]

– GIVENNESS requires F-marking on VP

– …then FOC requires and accent within the VP

– HEADARG favors accent on him over hit

– …and ACCF requires F-marking on him

[hit2 HIMF]F

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Excercise

Context: hit SueUtterance: hit him

GIV

EN

NE

SS F

OC

AC

C

F

AV

OID

F

HE

AD

AR

G

(a) [hit him] *

(b) [hit him]F * *

(c) [hit HIM]F * *

(d) [hit HIMF]F **

(e) [hit HIMF] *

(f) [HITF him]F ** *

(g) [HIT him]F * * *

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Excercise

Mary is not Given and therefore F-marked

MaryF hit HIMF

IP is Given:

[John hit1 Sue] → X Y[X hit2 Y]

Mary must be accented (by FOC)

MARYF hit HIMF

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Phonologically impoverished constraint set: FOC, AVOIDF

Criticisms and developments

– Sauerland (2005)

– Wagner (2005)

– Kehler (2005)

– Féry & Samek-Lodovici (2006)

– German, Pierrehumbert & Kaufmann (2006)

– Roberts (2008)

– German (2009)

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KEY POINT: A node may consist entirely of Given terminal elements and not be Given

– A node may be non-Given when "old parts combine in new ways"

– Explains why pronouns and other Given material is sometimes accented

– No need for a separate notion of contrast (Selkirk 1984, 1995)

Entailment matters for Givenness, a relation between two linguistic objects - not entailment by the utterance/context/common ground.

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Non-deterministic

– "In the examples presented here the relevant antecedent will be overt, but this does not preclude the possibility that a speaker could insinuate an antecedent, provided the hearer can accommodate it…the rules governing F-marking depends on what the speaker presents as Given" (p. 151)

– Few firm predictions for naturalistic data

– Simplifying assumption: Material repeated in close proximity counts as Given

Central role for discourse relations

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Givenness as anaphora

– Non-F-marked constituent in the final output introduces a presupposition that it has a salient antecedent.

– A pattern of F-marking on a subtree dominated by a node B defines a class of antecedents that would make B count as Given.

– Addition of F-marking weakens the constraint on that class.

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Accents and Pronominal Reference

Observation: The reference of 3rd person free pronouns sometimes depends on the prosodic pattern used

(1) a. John hit Bill, and then GEORGE hit him H* L-L%

b. John hit Bill, and then GEORGE hit HIM H* L- H* L-L%

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Theory 1: An accent on a pronoun “switches” its reference

– What is it switching from?

Theory 1’: Pronouns in a context have a default reference based on ______, and the presence of an accent on the pronoun switches its reference to something else

– What is the “something else”?

– Why would accents have this effect?

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Theory 1’’:

– Pronouns in a context are associated with a ranked list of potential referents based on ______. When unaccented, they take on the highest-ranked value.

– Since accents introduce additional markedness into a representation, they serve as a signal to the hearer that the "usual" interpretation should be avoided. (Solan 1983, Hirschberg & Ward 1991, Levinson 2000, Beaver 2004, Clark & Parikh 2007)

– The result is that the pronoun takes on the ______ value in the ranked list. (cf. Kameyama 1999)

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Problem #1: Accents already have an interpretation.

Problem #2: The effects of accent patterns on reference do not always involve additional accents.

(11) a. John kicked Bill. Then he [was INJUREDF] F.

b. John kicked Bill. Then HEF was injured.

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Problem #3: Patterns of accentuation/phrasing can constrain reference independently of the type of referring expression

Context: John hit Bill, and then…

(12) a. …GEORGE hit Bill

b. #…GEORGE hit John

(13) a. #…GEORGE hit BILL

b. …GEORGE hit JOHN

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Theory 2: Patterns of accentuation and phrasing give rise to presuppositions about the relationship between the contents of the uttered sentence and the contents of the discourse context. Pronouns are interpreted in a way that satisfies those presuppositions.

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Schwarzschild (1999) + simplifying assumption

(14) Context: Johnk hit Billi

Utterance: George hit himi

Optimal output: GEORGEF hit himi

(15) Context: Johnk hit Billi

Utterance: George hit himk

Optimal output: GEORGEF hit [HIMk]F

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Focus-based approach is as good as, but not better than, the “switching” approach

What kind of data would distinguish between them?

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(16) i. At the hotel, Max reminded Bob to ask for towels.

iia. Later that night, he made a REQUEST

iib. Later that night, HE made a request

IF the preference for he in (16iia) is for the matrix subject, then the “switching” approach universally predicts a preference for the embedded subject in (16iib)

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(16) i. At the hotel, Max reminded Bob to ask for towels.

iib. Later that night, HE made a request

Schwarzschild (1999)

– Antecedent A that entails Y[Y made a request]

– Antecedent A does not entail [he made a request], for the chosen value of he

– By ACCF, (16iib) would include more F-marking than is required by GIVENNESS and FOC

Assumption:

[PROBob ask for towels] entails [Bob/somebody made a request]

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0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

Unaccented (default) Accented

Mat

rix

su

bje

ct r

esp

on

ses

Matrix/Emb (C-D)

Matrix (A-B)

A

B

C

D

1 prosody & semantics prosodie et sémantique jean-marie marandin, llf & paris vii james...

Documents

prosodic categories

f0 peaks

phrasingtonal categories

specific segments

prosodic contrastsexample

acoustic signal

semantic contents

f0 spike obstruents