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Explaining attitudinal ratings of Dutch rising contours: morphological structure vs. the frequency code
Toni Rietveld1, Judith Haan, Linda Heijmans
1Centre for Language Studies, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. A.Rietveld@let.kun.nl
Phonetica
|September 17, 2002
Summary
Rising nuclear contours in Dutch questions were studied. The frequency code, linking high pitch to non-assertive meanings, better explained listener ratings than tone parceling hypotheses.
Area of Science:
- Phonetics
- Prosody
- Linguistics
Background:
- Attitudinal ratings of speech contours are crucial for understanding pragmatic meaning.
- Four rising nuclear contours (H*L H%, H* H%, L*H H%, L* H%) in Dutch questions were analyzed.
- Previous hypotheses focused on tone parceling and undershoot for meaning differentiation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To test two hypotheses explaining attitudinal meanings of four Dutch rising nuclear contours.
- To determine if tone parceling or the frequency code better predicts listener ratings.
- To investigate the relationship between pitch variations and perceived speaker attitudes.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a Dutch question corpus featuring four specific rising nuclear contours.
- Testing a hypothesis based on tone parceling, where undershoot creates distinct meanings.
- Testing a hypothesis based on the 'frequency code' relating F0 values to non-assertive behavior.
Main Results:
- The tone parceling hypothesis was not supported by the data.
- The 'frequency code' hypothesis provided a superior model for predicting listener ratings.
- High/rising F0 values were associated with non-assertive meanings, aligning with the frequency code.
Conclusions:
- The frequency code effectively explains attitudinal ratings of rising nuclear contours in Dutch.
- Tone parceling is not the primary mechanism differentiating the meanings of these contours.
- Pitch variation, particularly higher F0, signals non-assertive communication strategies.