Pitch accent alignment in Egyptian Arabic more evidence for cross-linguistic variation

1. Pitch accent alignment in Egyptian Arabicmore evidence for cross-linguistic variation Sam Hellmuth SOAS samhellmuth@soas.ac.uk PaPI 2005, Barcelona 20th June 2005

2. Egyptian Arabic pitch accent alignment Aim: • to explore the surface phonetic alignment patterns of Egyptian Arabic pitch targets • in rising pre-nuclear (= non-final) pitch accents • in different syllable types • to establish their phonological representation • to contribute to the growing range of cross-linguistic alignment data • towards pitch-accent typology Egyptian Arabic (EA): • = Egyptian Arabic: the dialect of Arabic spoken in Cairo • and also by educated people throughout Egypt • all data reported here collected in Cairo

3. autosegmental-metrical theory In AM theory, intonational contours are analysed as: • a sequence of pitch targets • H or L or bitonal combinations thereof • autosegmentally associated with prosodic structure • aka metrical structure: syllables, feet, words, phrases... Ladd 1996, P&B1988 inter alia ‘starred’ tone: associated with the stressed syllable of the main stress foot of the accented word Gussenhoven 2002

4. pitch accent alignment • recent discussion: can phonological association (‘starredness’) be inferred from surface alignment of individual pitch targets? Ladd 2003, Prieto et al (in press) • effects of prosodic context on surface alignment • Prieto et al (1995) Mexican Spanish pre-nuclear rising accents • in open syllables eg número • L very stably aligned at left edge of stressed syllable but see Prieto (in press) • H alignment is affected systematically by: • proximity to a prosodic boundary • proximity to other pitch accents • results reproduced for Lebanese Arabic (LA) Chahal 2001 • patterns of surface alignment to segmental landmarks • eg Arvaniti et al (1998) Greek pre-nuclear rising accents • targets independently aligned to specific landmarks in the string • L aligned very stably at the left edge of the stressed syllable • onset of the initial consonant of the stressed syllable (C0) • H also aligned stably to segmental landmarks • ‘segmental anchoring’

5. pitch accent alignment AL2004:187 two key studies for comparison here: • Atterer & Ladd 2004 • comparison of L/H target alignment • in two dialects of German • open syllables • Ladd, Mennen & Schepman 2000 • comparison of alignment in Dutch long vs short vowels • L alignment very stable (at C0) • H aligned: • within stressed vowel in CVV (long/tense) • into following consonant in CV (short/lax) • research questions: • how are pitch targets in EA non-final pitch accents aligned? • does alignment of EA pitch targets vary across syllable types?

6. pitch accent alignment what is known about EA pitch accents? • highly populated pitch accent distribution • “Arabic seems to have a greater tendency to accent all words..” Mitchell 1993:230 • “lexical stress of every content word will be stressed in continuous speech if.. nothing to cause suppression of the stress” Heliel 1977:125 • cf Spanish, Greek (Jun 2004), NEP, Brazilian Portuguese (Vigario & Frota 2003) • non-final pitch accents are bitonal • “an ‘up-and-down’, ‘see-saw’ effect.. characterises the spoken language” .... “unaccented syllables in the same word.. remain on the same height.. whereas pitch dips markedly lower to pre-accentual syllables in the following word.. from which a ‘jump’ takes place to the height of the following accented syllable” .... Mitchell 1993 • “pre-final stressed syllables.. are depicted by a late peak situated on the last point of the syllable... [and] are all rising” Rifaat 1991

7. methodology study modelled on Atterer & Ladd 2004 BUT: • three types of target syllable 1 CV light open short tense vowel 2 CVC heavy closed short lax vowel Shahin 1996 3 CVV heavy open long tense vowel • target syllables word-initial, target word non-initial in sentence • to clarify alignment facts in heavy vs light syllables • to facilitate comparison with the results of other studies (some CV, some CVC) • word-medial CVC closed syllables also tested: 4 CVC heavy closed short lax vowel • is alignment of pitch targets to word edge(s) or to the stressed syllable? • to facilitate comparison with the results of other studies (some word-initial, some word-medial)

8. methodology • targets placed in frame sentences, as ‘natural’ as possible • 6 sentences per ‘set’ > 24 target sentences + distractors • read three times by 15 EA speakers • 6 female & 9 male • all at pre-intermediate level or lower in English • 24 x 15 x 3 = 1080 (270 per set) > 939 fluent tokens for analysis • digital recordings using ProTools 6.1 on MBox, headset microphone • 44.1KHz 16 bit, re-sampled to 22.5KHz • F0/spectrogram & measurements extracted using Praat 4.2 • in effort to achieve naturalness > clash context not fully controlled # intervening σ before # intervening σ after set 1 0 or 1 2-4 set 2 0 or 1 2-4 set 3 0 or 1 1-2 set 4 1 or 2 1-3

9. methodology sample target sentences: • šufna malik il-?urdun lamma ruHna l-?urdun We saw the king of Jordan when we went to Jordan • ?akalna manga laziiza giddan min-is-suu? We ate a really delicious mango from the market. • ir-ruzzdamaaliH?awwi wiTa9muh waaHiš That rice is really salty and tastes horrible. • il-mudarris mimalmil min iT-Talaba The teacher is nervous of his students.

10. methodology • pitch event variables: L1 H L2 • alignment variables: L1-C0 L1-V0 (L1-X) H-C1 (H-C2) H-V1 • peak delay: H-C0 syllable duration#1: treats C1 as end of syllable in set 1 (CV.CV) syllable duration#2: treats V1 as end of syllable in set 1 (CVC.V) > relative peak delay (RPD): peak delay/syllable duration (RPD1/RPD2) NB L2 observed during transcription always to fall within following word

11. results L alignment variables H alignment variables relative peak delay

12. results: L alignment L alignment variables, all speakers, by set: • L is aligned closer to C0 than to V0 • ie to the left edge of the syllable

13. results: L alignment details of average speaker behaviour in L alignment across sets: • based on speaker means within each set: # who align L before C0 # who align L after C0 set 1 8 3F,5M 7 3F,4M set 2 3 3F,4M 14 6F,8M set 3 5 1F,4M 10 5F,5M set 4 3 1F,2M 12 5F, 7M • two speakers align L on average before C0 in 3 out of 4 sets • mrf/mun • most instances of early alignment are in set 1 • BUT no one speaker aligns before C0 consistently across sets • strong tendency to align L just after C0 (but not universal) • working hypothesis: in EA L is aligned “just after C0”

14. L alignment • in EA L aligns to left edge of the syllable, most often just after C0 • however there is a considerable variation in the dataset • across a range of 200 ms for some speakers clash

15. results: H alignment H alignment variables, all speakers, by set: • H is aligned after C1 • ie to the right edge of the syllable?

16. results: H alignment rise duration (H-L) x syllable duration: • rise duration maps more closely to sylldur#2 than sylldur#1 • suggests that alignment of H best described in terms of syllable definition #2

17. C V C V C V C C C V V C results: H alignment in terms of segmental landmarks, H alignment patterns differently in light vs heavy syllables • in CV (set 1) just before/after V1 • 8 speakers (1F/7M) align H before V1 • 7 speakers (5F/2M) align H after V1 • mean RPD1 > 1 (H aligned outside stressed syllable) • in CVC (set 2/4) between C1 & C2 • all speakers align H between C1 & C2 • mean RPD1 < 1 (H aligned well inside stressed syllable) • in CVV (set 3) just before/after C1 • 8 speakers (1F/7M) align H before C1 • 7 speakers (5F/2M) align H after C1 • RPD1: 8 speakers: <1; 7 speakers >1 clash

18. results: H alignment distance from H to syllable end (#2): • H aligns later in open syllables (CVV & CV) than in closed syllables (CVC) • an effect of vowel quality? (tense/lax) • however there is considerable variation in the dataset...

19. H alignment

20. results: towards explanations Q: is H aligned a fixed distance from L? • as already seen, there is some correlation between rise duration & syllable duration (#2) • suggesting that as the duration of the syllable increases the position of H also moves • the correlation is weak but is significant • Kendall’s τ 0.262 • p < 0.01 • some support for ‘segmental anchoring’ in EA

21. results: towards explanations Q: is there a fixed slope (rate of F0 change)? • F0 change (semitones) x rise duration • there is a correlation • unlike Greek (Arvaniti et al 1998) • suggesting that as the duration of the syllable increases the position of H also moves • again, the correlation is weak but is significant • Kendall’s τ 0.136 • p < 0.01 compare findings of Elzarki 1996 (EA pronunciation of Modern Standard Arabic)..

22. results: towards explanations Q: how stable is H scaling? • mean H F0 (semitones) • ie are speakers aiming at a specific H pitch target level? • unable yet to normalise for individual speaker pitch range (work in progress) • but visually there does not seem to be an effect of syllable type on H scaling

23. C V C V C V C C C V V C results: summary • L alignment • at left edge of stressed syllable • H alignment: • at right edge of stressed syllable • explanations: • fixed duration? • fixed slope? • segmental anchoring? • all three seem to be relevant • ? due to enlarged speaker set and resulting variation • in this context the consistent alignment of L and H to the syllable edges is all the more striking

24. discussion: cross-linguistic variation in alignment comparison to other Arabic dialects: • Lebanese Arabic Chahal 2001 (4 speakers) • LA: L aligns before/after C0 (depending on word position) • EA: L aligns just after C0 (slight variation due to word position) • but in same direction (L aligned earlier in medial syllable than initial) • LA: H aligns outside the stressed syllable in CVC syllables • EA: H aligns inside the stressed syllable in CVC syllables In LA L aligns earlier than in EA, and H aligns later...

25. discussion: cross-linguistic variation in alignment comparison to other Arabic dialects: • Moroccan Arabic Yeou 2004 (5 speakers) in MA: • L aligns “close to the onset of the syllable” • H aligns after C1 in CV syllables • “after the end of the stressed vowel” • H aligns after C1/before C2 in CVC syllables • within the stressed syllable (inferred from RPD value) In MA both L and H align similarly to their EA counterparts

26. discussion: cross-linguistic variation in alignment comparison to other languages: • comparing data in short open syllables additional evidence in support of a continuum of cross-linguistic variation in phonetic alignment of phonologically parallel pitch accents is it appropriate however to make a direct comparison of EA with these languages? are these pitch accents phonologically parallel?

27. discussion: phonological specification of EA pitch accents • unable at present to choose from among the three possible explanations • fixed duration vs. fixed slope vs. segmental anchoring • BUT: “association cannot be based on phonetic alignment in any straightforward way”.. Arvaniti et al (2000) (emphasis mine) • working hypothesis for EA pitch accents: • in the spirit of Prieto et al (in press) • bitonal pitch accent L+H • primary association of H to stressed syllable • perceptual salience of H cf Rifaat 2003 • no secondary association of H? • default alignment of L to onset of stressed syllable • problem?: association of strong element in pitch accent... • with weak element in foot • it is only meaningful to compare EA surface pitch accent alignment facts then with languages which also employ L+H* (defined under the same set of assumptions) • ?Catalan L+H* “rise with delayed peak” (Catalan targets were open syllables) • additional categories may also be needed: • should influence of fixed slope/duration be phonologically encoded? L+H* F σσ [ma lik]ω

28. ألف شكرthank you! With thanks to • the Egyptian Arabic speakers who acted as consultants • audiences at the UCL Phonology Reading Group & Manchester Phonology Meeting for comments on earlier versions of this paper This work was funded by AHRB postgraduate award 01/59198.