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interactionbetweenlexicaltoneandintonationin kinshasalingala yeongwoopark franciscotorreira heather goad mcgill university yeongwoo park mail mcgill ca francisco torreira mcgill ca heather goad mcgill ca abstract tional tones interact in the kinshasa dialect of ...

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                  INTERACTIONBETWEENLEXICALTONEANDINTONATIONIN
                                                   KINSHASALINGALA
                                       YeongWooPark,FranciscoTorreira, Heather Goad
                                                         McGill University
                            yeongwoo.park@mail.mcgill.ca; francisco.torreira@mcgill.ca; heather.goad@mcgill.ca
                                ABSTRACT                              tional tones interact in the Kinshasa dialect of Lin-
                                                                      gala, a Bantu language with a two-way lexical tonal
             We investigate the phonetic realization of lexical       contrast, and what appears to be a two-way intona-
             tones in phrase-final syllables in Kinshasa Lingala,      tional contrast in phrase-final position.
             where intonational and lexical targets coincide and        Previous descriptions of Lingala ([4], [5], [9],
             potentially conflict. We analyze read speech data         [11], [13]) report that the language has high and low
             from nine Kinshasa Lingala speakers. By employ-          lexical tones,1 (H and L from now on), respectively.
             ing stringent and objective criteria to identify into-   Guthrie [4] further claims that the realization of this
             national tones, we observe the following: (1) We         lexical tonal contrast is affected by an extra-low tone
             confirm the existence of intonational targets, with       that occurs phrase-finally, which we attribute to the
             extra high and extra low f0 values. (2) Contrasts be-    presence of a low intonational tone. This type of
             tween high and low lexical tones phrase-finally are       coarticulatory pattern has been described as super-
             unequivocally preserved when preceding a high in-        imposition in other Bantu languages (e.g., Embosi
             tonational tone, but not when preceding a low in-        [10], Limbum [3]).
             tonational tone. (3) Different patterns of coarticu-       In our data, we have observed very low f0 values
             lation arise in specific combinations of lexical and      at the end of many utterances where the last syllable
             intonational tones. (4) Speakers often use devoic-       carries an H tone, as well as unexpectedly high f0
             ing in conjunction with phrase-final low tonal tar-       values in cases where the phrase-final syllable car-
             gets, as well as when phrase-final syllables contain      ries a L tone. Fig. 1 illustrates both of these patterns
             /i/ regardless of its associated tone.                   in the words na yé ‘his’, where the last syllable car-
             Keywords:      lexical tone,  intonation, prosody,       ries a high lexical tone, but opposite f0 trajectories
             phrase-final position, Kinshasa Lingala                   are observed. While this eliminates the possibility
                                                                      of the avoidance pattern for Kinshasa Lingala - at
                           1. INTRODUCTION                            least for phrase-final H lexical tones - three options
                                                                      remain regarding the realization of the contrast be-
             The interaction of lexical tone and intonation is an     tween high and low lexical tones in phrase-final po-
             important aspect of linguistic systems, given that       sition: 1) submission; 2) sequential realization; and
             both implicate f0 but serve different linguistic func-   3) coalescence. We probe these different possibili-
             tions.  Hyman and Monaka [6] propose that the            ties by inspecting the phonetic realization of lexical
             two may interact in three different ways across lan-     tones in phrase-final syllables in Kinshasa Lingala.
             guages: (1) accommodation, where lexical and in-                          2. METHODS
             tonational tones co-occur but do not affect each
             other; (2) submission, where intonational tones “in-     2.1. Data collection
             vade and override” lexical tones; and (3) avoidance,
             where intonational tones fail to surface.                Read speech data were collected from 9 native
                We propose that the accommodation pattern can         speakers (5 males, 4 females) of Kinshasa Lingala.
             be further divided into two possibilities: (1) sequen-   Each speaker read one of two fables, which were
             tial realization, where lexical and intonational tones   originally written in standard Lingala. They were
             are realized sequentially, possibly with substantial     adapted for Kinshasa Lingala, and then written in
             coarticulation; and (2) coalescence, where both lex-     a form of writing commonly used in the Demo-
             ical and intonational contrasts are preserved but are    cratic Republic of Congo, which does not mark
             coalescedintoasingletonaltarget(e.g., a midtone),        tonal contrasts. Data were collected in a sound-
             from which lexical tones can be reconstructed. The       attenuated room at McGill University using Shure
             present study focuses on how lexical and intona-         SM10A head-mounted unidirectional microphones
                                                                 3812
                Figure 1: Opposite f0 patterns in semitones and waveforms for the same sequence of words na yé ‘his’ in phrase-
                final position, with syllable boundaries and lexical tones marked for the two last syllables.
                30
               100Hz)
                
               e
               r
               f0 (St -10
                  0                           L        H       1.124                                        L H
                                      Time (s)
                                    esíká na yé                         azalákí kobánga mpó na bOmOyi na yé
                                 ‘where he was’                               ‘he was fearing for his life’
                  0                  Time (s)                 1.124 0                     Time (s)                2.366
             connected to a Presonus AudioBox iTwo audio-             in semitones relative to 100 Hz. We normalized f0
             interface (48 kHz, 32-bit).                              measures relative to each speaker’s mean f0 value,
                                                                      calculated over the entire recording.
             2.2. Data preparation                                      Given that Lingala syllables always end in a
                                                                      vowel, devoicing was coded when Praat did not find
             For each recording, interpausal units (IPU) delim-       any f0 value in the second half of the final syllable.
             ited by silences of at least 200ms were identified
             automatically in Praat [1] using the “To TextGrid        2.3. Quantitative analyses
             (silences)” function. All lexical tones in the fables
             wereannotatedbyanativespeakerofKinshasaLin-              In order to probe the f0 trajectories observed
             gala with linguistic training. The last two syllables    throughout IPU-final syllables, we fitted a series
             in each IPU were labelled with their corresponding       of mixed-effects linear regression models using the
             tones. IPUs with non-canonical speech (e.g., mis-        lmerTest package in R [8]. We also fitted a logistic
             pronunciations, sudden stops, incomplete phrases,        mixed-effects regression model to test the statistical
             andclearly perceptible disfluencies) and non-speech       significance of IPU-final lexical tones on the occur-
             noise were excluded. Thirty-nine IPUs where mea-         rence of final devoicing.
             sured f0 values were 10 or more semitones higher or
             lower than the speaker’s mean f0 value were manu-                          3. RESULTS
             ally examined and excluded as f0 tracking errors.
                Since the intonation of Kinshasa Lingala is still     3.1. Fundamental frequency
             not well understood, we adopted stringent and con-
             servative criteria in annotating intonational tones.     The histograms in Fig. 2 show distributions of the
             Anyf0valueinanIPU-finalsyllablethatwashigher              last available speaker-normalized f0 values in the
             or lower than the previously identified H or L lexical    last quantile of all IPU-final syllables (including
             target in that IPU was labelled H% and L%, respec-       ones marked with M%), carrying H (left panel) and
             tively, after the IPUs-final syllable. As a result, 140   L(right panel) tones. The left panel exhibits a non-
             cases of H% (119 H and 21 L) and 261 cases of L%         unimodal,andmoreofabimodal,distribution,while
             (124 H and 137 L) were identified. The remaining          the right panel is less clear. Such non-unimodal dis-
             155IPUswerelabelledasM%andwereexcludedas                 tributions suggest the influence of additional tonal
             theydonotmeetthecriteriaproposedforthepresent            targets that may be attributed to intonational tones.
             study.                                                     Fig. 3 shows the trajectory patterns of speaker-
                The last syllable of each target IPU was divided      normalized f0 values measured in each of the three
             into three quantiles of equal duration and labelled      quantiles within IPU-final syllables for both lexi-
             as Q1, Q2, and Q3. Mean f0 values in Q1 and Q2,          cal and intonational tones. The error bars (CI 95%)
             and the last available f0 value in Q3, were measured     were calculated using the "mean_cl_boot" function,
                                                                 3813
                   Figure 2:     Distribution of the last available             and the difference between H and L tones seems to
                   speaker-normalized f0 in the last quantile of all            be neutralized in the presence of L%, with consider-
                   IPU-final syllables (bin width = 1.5).                        able overlap.
                                                                                   To test the statistical significance of these pat-
                                                                                terns, we fitted a series of linear mixed effects mod-
                        Final Lexical Tone: H     Final Lexical Tone: L         els, predicting f0 in Q1, Q2, and Q3 separately for
                  50                                                            eachintonationaltone. Weincludedthelexicaltones
                  40                                                            of the IPU-final syllable and the preceding syllable
                  30                                                            as fixed predictors, and speaker as a random inter-
                 count20                                                        cept.
                  10
                   0                                                               Whenthe intonational tone is H%, f0 is lower in
                      −10 −5      0    5   10   −10 −5      0    5   10         the presence of a L tone in Q2 (β = -3.43, t = -7.308,
                         Last available Speaker−normalized f0 in Q3             p < 0.001) and Q3 (β = -2.04, t = -2.832, p < 0.01).
                                        (St re 100Hz)                           Additionally, the lexical tone of the preceding syl-
                                                                                lable has significant effects in Q1 (β = -3.142, t =
               which does not assume normality, in the R ggplot2                -7.692, p < 0.001) and Q2 (β = -1.47, t = -4.303, p
               [12] package.                                                    < 0.001). The effect sizes show what appears to be
                   Figure 3:      Trajectory   patterns  of speaker-            a local effect that weakens as the temporal distance
                   normalized average f0 values throughout target               from the preceding syllable increases. These results
                   IPU-final syllables.                                          indicate that, when the intonational tone is H%, the
                                                                                lexical tonal contrast is preserved in Q2 and Q3, de-
                                                                                spite significant coarticulatory effects from adjacent
                             IPU Final Lexical Tone       H       L             tonal targets.
                                                                                   When the intonational tone is L%, L tones have
                         Boundary Tone: H%        Boundary Tone: L%             slightly lower f0 than H tones in Q2 (β = -1.188, t =
                                                                                -3.09, p < 0.01), but not in Q3. The lexical tone
                   100Hz)                                                       of the preceding syllable has a significant effect in
                  re3                                                           Q1 (β = -1.712, t = -4.056, p < 0.001), but not in
                                                                                Q2. These results suggest that, when the intona-
                  ed f0 (St 0                                                   tional tone is L%, the lexical tonal contrast is pre-
                                                                                served at least in Q2, and that it is effectively neu-
                  maliz−3                                                       tralized towards the end of the syllable.
                  er−nor                                                        3.2. Final devoicing
                   −6
                          Q1     Q2     Final       Q1     Q2     Final         Recall from section 2.2 that devoicing was coded
                  Speak                                                         when Praat failed to find any f0 value in the sec-
                               Position within IPU−final syllable               ond half of the final syllable. Table 1 shows the oc-
                  While the overall trends show a substantial influ-             currence of IPU-final devoicing organized by into-
               ence of intonational tones throughout the syllable,              national tones and lexical tones.
               the lexical tonal contrast appears to be preserved in                   Table 1: Occurrence of IPU-final devoicing
               certain positions.    Specifically, when followed by                 Devoiced: 119 IPUs
               H%,Htoneshavehigherf0valuesandLtoneshave                                                                 Lexical Tone
               lowerf0valuesinQ2,comparedtothevaluesinQ1.                                                                H         L
               In contrast, when the intonational tone is L%, f0 is                                          H%         14         0
               not higher for H tones in Q2 compared to the values                 Intonational Tone         L%         35         70
               in Q1, while L tones show a considerable drop in
               f0 in the same position. Also, the contrast between
               Hand L tones in Q2 is less evident when followed                    Further examination revealed that out of the 119
               by L% as compared to when followed by H%. As                     IPUs coded as devoiced, all 14 IPUs with H% end
               for Q3, the difference between H and L tones in the              in the vowel /i/, which suggests that there may be
               presence of H% is smaller when compared to the                   an independent devoicing mechanism involving that
               difference foundinQ2,withsomeoverlapobserved;                    vowel. Therefore, we excluded all 34 IPUs with fi-
                                                                                nal devoiced /i/ from the analysis of devoicing, in-
                                                                          3814
              cluding 20 IPUs with L% (11 H and 9 L).                      stantial influence in all quantiles throughout IPU-
                 Eighty-five IPUs remained after removal of final            final syllables, thereby impacting the overall f0 tra-
              devoiced /i/, 61 IPUs with L tone on the last syl-           jectory. Such global trends may be interpreted as
              lable and 24 IPUs with H tone. To test for statis-           anticipatory coarticulation, in which speakers begin
              tical significance, we fitted a mixed effects logistic         approaching f0 targets associated with L% or H%
              regression model with the occurrence of devoicing            while during the production of lexical tones. Since
              as a response variable, IPU-final lexical tone as a           this pattern of tonal interaction becomes stronger as
              fixed predictor, and speaker as a random intercept.           thetemporaldistancefromtheintonationaltonesde-
              Wefoundthatlexicaltonehasasignificanteffecton                 creases, the pattern can be attributed to a local coar-
              the occurrence of devoicing (β = 2.112, z = 6.549,           ticulatory effect, rather than to coalescence of two
              p < 0.001). Our observations suggest that final de-           tones into a single tonal target. Lastly, the smaller
              voicing is not driven by some phonological condi-            but nonetheless clear tonal contrasts preserved in Q3
              tion tied to tonal specification, but rather indirectly       in the presence of H% can be attributed to the carry-
              relates to low f0 targets, which are more frequent           over effect from the IPU-final L tones. In syllables
              with L tones in phrase-final position.                        containing H%, therefore, the phonetic realizations
                                                                           of lexical and intonational tones appear to be sub-
                   4. DISCUSSIONANDCONCLUSION                              stantially blended in f0.
                                                                              Together with the f0 trajectories observed
              In this paper, we investigated the phonetic realiza-         throughout the three quantiles, the results of the
              tion of phrase-final lexical tones in different intona-       mixed-effects linear regression models are indica-
              tional contexts in a corpus of read speech in Kin-           tive of sequential realization of lexical tones and
              shasa Lingala. Our focus was on whether lexical              following intonational tones in IPU-final syllables.
              tonal contrasts are preserved in this position. Our          Thatis,HandLtonesexhibitcontrastivetrajectories
              results indicate that the two-way lexical contrast is        from Q1 to Q2, regardless of the following intona-
              preserved in different phrase-final intonational con-         tional tone, and this contrast is reduced towards the
              texts despite substantial coarticulatory pressure from       end of the syllable, where intonational tones have
              adjacent tonal targets (i.e. preceding lexical tones         the strongest local effect, in addition to their global
              and following intonational tones). The contrast is           effect throughout the final syllable.
              most prominent in Q2 of the last syllable of the tar-           Our results also indicate that the probability of
              get IPUs. WhilethetonalcontrastispreservedinQ3               IPU-final devoicing significantly increases when a
              whenfollowedbyH%,thedifferenceinf0valuesis                   L tone is present on an IPU-final syllable. Yet, to-
              smaller than in Q2. Interestingly, when the intona-          gether with the occurrence pattern reported in sec-
              tional tone is L%, the lexical contrast appears to be        tion 3.2, the results suggest that devoicing is likely
              preserved in Q2, though less robustly compared to            not a phonological phenomenon driven by the tonal
              H%, and neutralized in Q3 with substantial overlap           specification of phrase-final syllables, as a near cate-
              off0. Thatis, weobservedistinctcontext-dependent             gorical distribution would then be expected. In con-
              patterns of preservation and possible neutralization         trast, 28.24% of devoicing occurs with a H tone.
              of lexical tones in different location within the same       Taking the global and local effects of L% in IPU-
              phrase-finalsyllable, presumablydrivenbythesame               final syllables into consideration, one possible ex-
              type of tonal target (i.e.   intonational tone).  The        planation is that IPU-final devoicing is closely re-
              preservation of the lexical tonal contrast cannot be         lated to low f0 values rather than to a specific tonal
              attributed to either the coalescence or the submission       specification.    Since speakers of other languages
              pattern, where we would expect a non-contrastive f0          have been shown to use non-f0 cues to mark tonal
              trajectory to emerge for each intonational tone.             targets (e.g., [2] & [7]), it is possible that Lingala
                 Our results also indicate distinctive directionali-       speakers shift acoustic dimensions (i.e. from f0 to
              ties of influence from preceding lexical tones and            voicing) to cue lexical tonal targets as they approach
              following intonational tones on the realization of           the bottom limit of their f0 ranges. This and related
              phrase-final lexical tones. Preceding lexical tones           hypotheses require further investigation.
              have their strongest effect in Q1, but the effect                             5. REFERENCES
              weakens throughout the rest of the syllable, such
              that it is non-significant in Q3. This pattern may              [1] Boersma, P., Weenink, D. 2018. Praat: A system
              be attributed to a carry-over coarticulatory effect,               for doing phonetics by computer, version 6.0. 40.
              which affects the realization of a following tone.             [2] Gao, J., Hallé, P. A. 2015. The role of voice quality
              On the other hand, intonational tones have a sub-                  in Shanghai tone perception. Proceedings of the
                                                                     3815
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...Interactionbetweenlexicaltoneandintonationin kinshasalingala yeongwoopark franciscotorreira heather goad mcgill university yeongwoo park mail ca francisco torreira abstract tional tones interact in the kinshasa dialect of lin gala a bantu language with two way lexical tonal we investigate phonetic realization contrast and what appears to be intona phrase nal syllables lingala position where intonational targets coincide previous descriptions potentially conict analyze read speech data report that has high low from nine speakers by employ h l now on respectively ing stringent objective criteria identify into guthrie further claims this national observe following is affected an extra tone conrm existence occurs nally which attribute f values contrasts presence type tween are coarticulatory pattern been described as super unequivocally preserved when preceding imposition other languages e g embosi tonational but not limbum different patterns coarticu our have observed very lation arise sp...

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