Accentuation and phrasing in Romance: Occitan and French

1. Accentuation and phrasing in Romance:Occitan and French Rafèu Sichel-Bazin1,2, Carolin Buthke1, Trudel Meisenburg1 1 Universität Osnabrück, 2 Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona) DFG-Projekt Intonation im Sprachkontakt: Okzitanisch und Französisch

2. STRUCTURE • 1. Project and data • 2. Theoretical background • 3. General basic contour: LHiLH* • 3.1 Initial accents • 3.2 Pitch accents • 4. Boundaries • 4.1 Continuation contours and hesitations4.1.1 Continuation rise and sustained pitch4.1.2 Continuation fall • 4.2 Utterance-final contours4.2.1 Upstepped last prenuclear rise4.2.2 Delayed peak • 5. Conclusion

3. 1. PROJECT AND DATA • Project “Intonation in contact: Occitan and French” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Romance_20c_en.png

4. 1. PROJECT AND DATA • Project “Intonation in contact: Occitan and French” Occitan and French prosody, accentuation and phrasing – Occitan: word accent on the penultimate or ultimate • – French: phrase final accent Northern (N-) French: close to standard French Southern (S-) French: in close contact to Occitan • Data Situations survey (Prieto 2001, http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlesentonacio/) Neutral yes/no question: 2a1. You enter a shop where you never went before and you ask if they have mandarins. ‘Do you have mandarins?’ Confirming yes/no question: 2d6. John has said that he’d come for dinner. You ask him to confirm it. ‘You will come for dinner, right?’

5. 1. PROJECT AND DATA • Data Map task (http://prosodia.upf.edu/atlasintonacion/) Summary of the fable “The North wind and the sun” (IPA 1999)

6. Corpus: speakers from La Cauna/Lacaune, Tolosa/Toulouse, Lille & Orléans 1. PROJECT AND DATA

7. 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND • French • Post (2000): syntactic approach, lexical accents, deletion process • Di Cristo (2009): • Jun & Fougeron (2002), ~ Welby (2006):

8. 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND (Hualde 2003a) • Occitan • Hualde (2003a, 2004), Sichel-Bazin (2009): Tonal movements on syllables that are not metrically strong  initial or secondary accents

9. 3. GENERAL BASIC CONTOUR • in all 3 varieties LHiLH* • basic contour in Gallo-Romance intonation • Corresponding prosodic unit (accentual phrase, AP) • French: determined by final (and optionally initial) accent • Occitan: determined by lexical accent plus surrounding clitics = clitic group • APs are organized into Intonational Phrases (IPs) – prenuclear AP(s) vs. nuclear AP – boundary tone(s)

10. 3. GENERAL BASIC CONTOUR ‘to move forward he folded up’

11. 3.1 INITIAL ACCENTS • Tonal movements on syllables that are not metrically strong • Traditional “accent d’insistance” to signal emphasis (Carton et al 1976, Fónagy 1980, Astésano 2001) • Possible features: • Tonal rise (to variable height) • Onset consonant strengthening (under emphasis) • Intensity peak • Usually no lengthening • More frequent in cases of emphasis, but quite generalized today • Marking of left boundaries (in support of phrasing) • On initial syllables of first content word • Also possible on clitics

12. ‘to move forward he folded up’ 3.1 INITIAL ACCENTS in Occitan

13. 3.1 INITIAL ACCENTS: clash conditions • French: clash usually avoided • Occitan: clash situations possible (Hualde 2003a) • Spanish • Initial rises possible in emphatic or didactic speech, clash said to be avoided • Hualde 2003b, to appear: clash situations are marked, but accent correlates split up between syllables:

14. 3.1 INITIAL ACCENTS in French: clash conditions ‘he gets started to heat up, heat up’

15. 3.1 INITIAL ACCENTS in French: clash conditions ‘who make a bet to…’

16. 3.2 PITCH ACCENTS in our 3 varieties • Obligatory accents on metrically strong AP-final syllables: • Tonal movement (rising or falling) • Eventually intensity peak • Lengthening • APs organized into IPs: • 1 (or more) prenuclear accent(s), 1 nuclear accent • nuclear accent: most prominent, normally rightmost • D’Imperio et al (2007), French left dislocated IPs: – prenuclear and nuclear pitch accents differ in alignment and scaling properties:

17. 3.2 PRENUCLEAR vs. NUCLEAR ACCENTS • Rising contours: similar observations for the 3 varieties • Higher scaling of nuclear accents: due to H boundary tone? • Differences in alignment: due to different pitch accent types? • Differences in slope: • convex in prenuclear accents > H*? • concave in nuclear accents > LH* H%? • But some prenuclear accents are actually LH*(especially in S-French and Occitan) more research needed

18. ‘the story between the North wind and the sun, …’ 3.2 PRENUCLEAR vs. NUCLEAR ACCENTS

19. ‘the traveling man, er… tightens his coat’ 4. BOUNDARIES:4.1 CONTINUATION CONTOURS and HESITATIONS • Continuation rise / sustained pitch: H%

20. ‘the coat of a traveling man who passes the…’ 4.1.1 CONTINUATION RISE • S-French: on etymological schwa syllables

21. ‘the story between the North wind and the sun, …’ 4.1.1 CONTINUATION RISE • N-French: also on non etymological schwas

22. ‘and then he wanted to make him lose the …’ 4.1.1 CONTINUATION RISE • Occitan: on different vowels

23. ‘and he tightened a coat’ 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL • Continuation fall: L%

24. 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL: boundary tones • Continuation fall: L% • Utterance-final boundary tone: T# • IP-final boundary tone: T%

25. ‘make a competition’ 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL • N-French: also on non etymological schwas  continuation

26. ‘who has… won… on… the North wind.’ 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL • N-French: also on non etymological schwas  continuation or hesitation

27. ‘the coat of a traveling man who passes the…’ 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL • Interrupted prosodic constituents: lengthening and falling contour

28. 4.1.2 CONTINUATION FALL ‘and then he wanted to make him lose the …’ • Interrupted prosodic constituents: lengthening and falling contour

29. 4.2 BOUNDARY TONES:UTTERANCE-FINAL CONTOURS • Utterance-final contour: L* L# Pitch reaches the baseline of the speaker’s tessitura  L# ≠ L% • 2 types of last prenuclear contours: • upstepped rise • delayed peak

30. 4.2.1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE • D’Imperio et al (2007) Last prenuclear AP in left-dislocated IPs: slightly different pattern – continuation rise pattern – nuclear configuration: rise – last prenuclear AP: downstep  bigger contrast with IP-final rise • Our data – Nuclear configuration: fall – Last prenuclear accent upstepped (LHi or LH*)  bigger contrast with IP-final fall • Due to an increased range in the focus domain? Focus domain: final, 2 APs – last or nuclear AP: falling contour – prenuclear AP: upstepped rising contour

31. ‘the one who would make him take off the jacket. The blazer.’ 4.2.1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE

32. ‘and decide to find out who is the strongest’ 4.2.1 UPSTEPPED LAST PRENUCLEAR RISE

33. 4.2.2 DELAYED PRENUCLEAR PEAKS • Utterance-final contour: L* L# • Last prenuclear AP-final rises: • both L and H* targets may align later • due to sentence type?  cleft sentences • syntactic boundary marked intonationally? • AP basic contour in U-final conditions: HiL*?

34. ‘it is thus the sun who is the strongest’ 4.2.2 DELAYED PRENUCLEAR PEAKS

35. 5. CONCLUSIONS: BASIC CONTOUR OF APs • Basic contour of APs in Gallo-Romance: LHiLH* • Occitan AP = clitic group • French AP = clitic group or bigger • Prosodic marking of the AP: • Left: initial phrase accent LHiMore research needed on • conditions provoking it • alignment • features splitting up in clash conditions • Right: final pitch accent LH* • Occitan: lexically defined position • French: not lexically defined, but on last full syllable of a lexical word

36. 5. CONCLUSIONS: FRENCH SCHWA • Final schwa • S-French • only etymological schwas • schwas normally realized • N-French: • etymological schwas normally not realized • non etymological schwas may be inserted at the end of APs

37. 5. FURTHER RESEARCH: role of feet? • How are Occitan, S-French and N-French feet organized? In what may they differ? • Do feet play a role • in determining the AP maximal/minimal length? • in the appearance of initial accents? • in the assignment of prominences to syllables within APs? • in the alignment of tonal targets?

38. 5. FURTHER RESEARCH: intermediate phrases (ip)? • Different prosodic hierarchy in the 3 varieties? • Occitan: AP= clitic group> ip >IP> ULHiLH*T-T%T# • S-French:AP> ip>IP> ULHiLH*T-T%T# • N-French:AP?> IP> ULHiLH* ? T%T# Evidence for ips in Occitan and S-French: • prosodic interdependence of certain APs • presence of IP-internal boundary tones • ...  Further research needed

39. ˌmeɾ.se.ˈpla mɛɾ.ˈsi.bo.ˈku ˌmɛʁ.si.bo.ˈku.ə

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