Prosodic encoding of focus and interrogative meaning in Lhasa Tibetan

ZHANG Xiaxia; WANG Bei

doi:10.16511/j.cnki.qhdxxb.2018.21.012

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Journal of Tsinghua University(Science and Technology) ›› 2018, Vol. 58 ›› Issue (4) : 368-373. DOI: 10.16511/j.cnki.qhdxxb.2018.21.012

COMPUTER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Prosodic encoding of focus and interrogative meaning in Lhasa Tibetan

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Abstract

The focus and the interrogative meaning are both important communication functions which can be encoded prosodically. This study considered two target sentences uttered by 8 native Lhasa Tibetan speakers as both questions and statements with four focus conditions (initial, medial, final and neutral focus). The prosodic encoding of the focus and the interrogative meaning in Lhasa Tibetan were investigated using acoustic and statistical analyses of F0 and the duration of the target sentences. The results showed that on-focus words exhibit significant increases in F0, pitch range and duration, while pre-focus words remain the same in both questions and statements. Post-focus words in statements show obvious compression in F0 and pitch, while post-focus compression was not uniform in questions. Interrogative intonation was higher and the F0 rise of the post-focus parts was more stable than the corresponding focus condition of statements. The F0 of on-focus words was the same in statements and questions. Therefore, the F0 of the post-focus constituents is the main part of the interrogative intonation rise, but was not compressed for focal prominence. Thus, the F0 of on-focus words could not be used to differentiate between statements and questions.

Key words

interrogative intonation / Tibetan / focus / post-focus compression (PFC)

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ZHANG Xiaxia, WANG Bei. Prosodic encoding of focus and interrogative meaning in Lhasa Tibetan[J]. Journal of Tsinghua University(Science and Technology). 2018, 58(4): 368-373 https://doi.org/10.16511/j.cnki.qhdxxb.2018.21.012

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