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<Paper uid="P87-1023">
  <Title>NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT NOW: IDENTIFYING CUE PHRASES INTONATIONALLY</Title>
  <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT NOW:
IDENTIFYING CUE PHRASES INTONATIONALLY
Julia Hirschberg
AT&amp;T Bell Laboratories
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"/>
  </Section>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
AT&amp;T Bell Laboratories
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"/>
  </Section>
  <Section position="3" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
ABSTRACT
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Cue phrases are words and phrases such as now and by the way which may be used to convey explicit information about the structure of a discourse. However, while cue phrases may convey discourse structure, each may also be used to different effect. The question of how speakers and hearers distinguish between such uses of cue phrases has not been addressed in discourse studies to date. Based on a study of now in natural recorded discourse, we propose that cue and non-cue usage can be distinguished intonationally, on the basis of phrasing and accent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> I. Introduction Cue phrases are linguistic expressions -- such as okay, but, now, anyway, by the way, in any case, that reminds me -which may, instead of making a 'semantic' contribution to an utterance (i.e., affecting its truth conditions), be used to convey explicit information about the structure of a discourse \[4\], \[16\], \[5\]. 1 For example, anyway can indicate a topic return and that reminds me can signal a digression. The recognition and generation of cue phrases is of considerable interest to research in natural language processing. The structural information conveyed by these phrases is crucial to tasks such as anaphora resolution \[6\], \[5\], \[16\] and the identification of rhetorical relations among portions of a text or discourse \[11\], \[8\], \[16\]. It has also been claimed that the incorporation of cue phrases into natural language processing systems helps reduce the complexity of discourse processing \[21\], \[4\], \[10\].</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Despite the recognized importance of cue phrases, many questions about how they are defined both individually and as a class -- and how they are to be represented, generated, and recognized -- remain to be examined. For example, in the general case, each lexical item that can serve as a 'cue phrase' also has an alternate interpretation. 2 While the 'cue' interpretation provides explicit 1. Previous literature has employed the terms 'clue word', 'discourse marker' or 'discourse particle' for these items \[16\], \[4\], \[14\], \[18\]. More recently Grosz and Sidner \[5\] have proposed the term cue phrase for these items, which we will adopt in this paper.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 2. If 'non-lexical' items such as uh are classed as cue phrases, then this generalization may not hold for all cue phrases. However, information about the structure of a discourse, the 'non-cue' interpretation provides quite different information, such as conjunction (but) or adverbial modification (anyway). Distinguishing between these two uses is critical to the interpretation of discourse. In this paper, we address the problem of how this distinction might be made: We propose that, in speech, this distinction is made intonationally. We support our hypothesis by an analysis of cue and non-cue uses of the item now in recorded naturally occurring discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> In Section 2 we discuss the general problem of distinguishing between cue and non-cue usage and consider possible alternatives to our hypothesis. In Section 3 we present relevant aspects of the theory of English intonation assumed here for our analysis \[13\], \[9\]. Section 4 describes our data, presents the results of our analysis, and along with Section 5, discusses the implications of our results for the identification of cue phrases in general -both in speech and in written text.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="0" end_page="166" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2. The Problem
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Previous definitions of cue phrases as a class have been extensional and definitions of particular cue phrases procedural. For example, now signals a 'push' or 'pop' \[5\] of the attentional stack or 'further development' of a previous context \[16\]. Despite some recognition \[5\] that cue phrases are not always employed as cue phrases, no attempt has been made to discover how 'cue' uses of cue phrases are distinguished from 'non-cue' uses. When does now, for example, function as a discourse marker and when is it deictic? Roughly, the non-cue or deictic use of now makes refer-C/nce to a span of time which minimally includes the utterance time. This time span may include little more than moment of utterance, as in I, or it may be of indeterminate length, as in 2. 3  even uh appears to have both 'cue' and 'non-cue' uses; i.e., it may signal a digression or interruption, or it may simply serve as a pause filler.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> 3. These and other examples are taken from a radio call-in program, Harry Gross's &amp;quot;Speaking of Your Money&amp;quot; \[15\]. The corpus will be described in more detail in Section 4.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  Fred: Yeah I think we'll look that up and possibly uh after one of your breaks Harry.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Harry: OK we'll take one now. Just hang on Bill and we'll be right back with you.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> o Harry: You know I see more coupons now than I've ever seen before and I'll bet you have too, In contrast, the cue use of now signals a return to a previous topic, as in the two examples of now in 3, or introduces a subtopic, as in 4.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> .</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Harry:Fred whatta you have to say about this IRA problem? Fred: Ok. You see now unfortunately Harry as we alluded to earlier when there is a distribution from an IRA that is taxable ...{discussion of caller's beneficiary status}... Now the the five thousand that you're alluding to uh of the -- null Doris: I have a couple quick questions about the income tax. The first one is my husband is retired and on social security and in '81 he few odd jobs for a friend uh around the property and uh he was reimbursed for that to the tune of about $640. Now where would he where would we put that on the form? While the distinction between cue and non-cue now seems fairly clear in the above examples, other cases are more difficult. Consider 5: 5, Ethel: All right I have just retired from a position that I've been in for forty some odd years. I have -- I earned in 1981 about thirty thousand dollars. Now I have a profit sharing coming to me. My problem is shall I take the ten year averaging...</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> From the transcription alone, either a cue or a non-cue interpretation is plausible. The caller might have a profit sharing due her at the moment of utterance (non-cue). Or, she might be using now to mark profit sharing as a subtopic (cue) -- leaving the time of the profit sharing unspecified.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> How then do hearers distinguish cue from non-cue uses? One might propose that hearers use tense to delimit cases in which deictic now is vossible. That is, it would seem reasonable to propose that deictic now occurs only when the verb modified by now (or the main verb of the clause so modified) is temporally compatible -- i.e., non.past. For example, using the past tense in 1 -- we took one now -- seems distinctly odd. However, we took one just now is clearly felicitous. So, both cue and non-cue now are possible when the main verb is in the past tense. As examples 1- 3 above illustrate, both are also possible when the main verb is in the present tense. So, tense is clearly inadequate to distinguish between cue and non-cue uses of now. Another possible diagnostic for non-cue now might be some notion of the general felicity of temporal reference in an utterance -- which might correspond to the felicity of substituting other temporal adverbials for now. For example, we'll take one in an hour would be felicitous in 1, as would I see more coupons these days in 2. Substituting other temporals for now in either example 3 (Today the the five thousand that you're alluding to...) or example 4 (Monday where would he where would we put that on the form?) would be infelicitous. However, this is only a necessary -but hot a sufficient -- test for deictic now. While a temporal adverbial may be substituted for now in 5 (e.g., Today I have a profit sharing coming to me), both cue and non-cue interpretations appear equaliy plausible from the transcription, as noted above. In fact, listeners have no hesitation in labeling this a cue now.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> A third possibility is that hearers use surface order position to distinguish cue from non-cue uses. In fact, most systems that generate cue phrases assume a canonical (usually first) position within the clause \[16\], \[21\]. However, without intonational information, surface position may itself be unclear. Consider Example 6: , Evelyn: I see. So in other words I will have to pay the full amount of the uh of the tax now what about Pennsylvania state tax? Can you give me any information on that? Although a cue reading is possible, most readers would assign now a non-cue interpretation if it is associated with the preceding clause, I will have to pay the full amount of the...tax now -- but a cue interpretation if it is associated with the succeeding clause, Now what about Pennsylvania state tax?. The actual recording of 6 clearly supports the latter interpretation: the strong intonational boundary between tax and now identifies the clausal boundary -and, thus, indirectly, the surface position of now within its clause. Similarly, 7 would be ambiguous between a cue reading, Well now, you've got another point, and a deictic reading, Well, now you've got another point -- without intonational cues:  7, Fred: You stand up for your rights. Whatever you give to charity you claim.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> Linda:(laughs) I don't want the hassle of an of an Fred: Well now you've got another point and I think at at times the service counts on the fact that people don't want the hassle -and maybe we as Americans have to stand up a little bit more and claim what's due us.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> Here it is clear from the recording that Fred intended the deictic use. Later, we will present evidence from our corpus that cue now can appear clause-finally, and non-cue now, clause.initially. So, surface position also appears inadequate to distinguish cue from non-cue now.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> Finally, hearers might use syntactic information to discriminate between cue and non-cue usage. At least for now, this seems unlikely. Both cue and non-cue now's are commonly classed as adverbials. So syntactic category does not differentiate. Furthermore, both can be attached at the sentence level. While non-cue now may also modify VP, it is difficult to imagine attaching cue now at that level -- since, by definition, it can make no 'semantic' contribution to either S or riP. However, this potential attachment distinction does not provide a means of distinguishing cue from non-cue now -- rather, attachment possibilities must be based on the prior cue/ non-cue distinction. So, syntactic structure provides no useful clues to the identification of cue versus non-cue usage in this case. In summary, neither tense, nor the 'appropriateness' of temporal modification (or lack thereof), nor surface position, nor syntactic structure provides adequate information for distinguishing between cue and non-cue now. As we. will show in the remainder of this paper, however, intonational features do provide such information.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13">  3. Phrasing and Accent In English  The importance of intonational information to the communication of discourse structure has been recognized in a variety of studies \[7\], \[20\], \[2\], \[17\], \[1\]. However, just which intonational features are important and how they communicate discourse information is not well understood. Under-utilization of objective measures of intonational features in empirical research and the lack of a sufficiently explicit system for intonational description have made it difficult to compare and evaluate specific claims. For our study we have examined fundamental frequency (F0) contours produced using an autocorrelation pitch tracker developed by Mark Liberman. As a system of intona-tional description, we have adopted Pierrehumbert's \[13\] theory of English intonation.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> In Pierrehumbert's system, intonational contours are described as sequences of low (L) and high (H) tones in the F0 (fundamental frequency) contour. A well-formed intermediate phrase consists of one or more pitch accents, which are aligned with stressed syllables (with alignment indicated by *) on the basis of the metrical pattern of the text and signify intonational prominence, and a simple high (H) or low (L) tone that represents the phrase accent.* The phrase accent controls the pitch between the last pitch accent of the current intermediate phrase and the beginning of the next -- or the end of the utterance. Intonational phrases are larger phonological units, composed of one of more intermediate phrases. At the end of an intonational phrase, a boundary tone, which may also be It or L and is indicated by '%', falls exactly at the phrase boundary. So, each intonational phrase ends with a phrase accent and a boundary tone.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> A phrase's tune, or melody, has as its domain the intonational phrase. It is defined by the sequence of pitch accent(s), phrase accent(s), and boundary tone of that phrase. For example, an ordinary declarative pattern with a final fall is represented as H* L L% -- that is, a tune with H* pitch accent(s), a L phrase accent, and a L% boundary tone. Consider the pitch track in Figure 1 representing a simple intonational phrase composed of one intermediate phrase and with a typical declarative contour. (For ease of comparison of intonational features here, we present pitch contours of synthetic speech, produced with the Bell Labs Text-to-Speech System \[12\]. The analysis we will present in Section 4 is based upon recorded natural</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> All the pitch accents in this phrase, including the nuclear accent -- the primary stressed syllable -- are high (H*).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> The phrase accent is L and the boundary tone is also low (L%).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="19"> A given sentence may be uttered with considerable variation in phrasing. For example, in Figure 1 Now let's talk about 'now' was produced as a single intonational phrase, whereas in Figure 2 Now is set off as a separate phrase.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="21"> The occurrence of phrase accents and boundary tones, together with other phrase-final characteristics such as pauses and syllable lengthening, enable us to identify intermediate and intonational phrases in natural as well as in synthetic speech.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="22"> Pitch accents, peaks or valleys in the F0 contour which fall on the stressed syllables of lexical items, make those items intonationally prominent. In Figure 3, the first instance of now has no pitch accent, while the second receives nuclear stress. (In our notation, the absence of a specified accent indicates that a word is not accented.)</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="24"> Contrast Figure 3 with Figure 1. In Figure 3, the first f0 peak occurs on let's; in Figure 1, the first peak occurred on now.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="25"> A pitch accent consists either of a single tone or an ordered pair of tones, such as L*+H. The tone aligned with the stressed syllable is indicated by a star (*); thus, in an L*+H accent, the low tone (L*) is aligned with the stressed syllable. There are six pitch accants in English: two simple tones -- H and L -- and four complex ones --L*+H, L+H*, H*+L, and H+L*. The most common accent, H*, comes out as a peak on the accanted syllable (as, on Now in Figure 1). L* accants occur much lower in the pitch range than H* and are phonetically realized as local f0 minima. The acnant on Now in Figure 4 is a L*.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="27"> The other English accents have two tones. Figure 5 shows a version of the senten~ in Figures 1-4 with a L+H* accent on the first instanc, of now.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="29"> ....... a ...... '1 i . * S e ~ i I ~e ~ E- I ...... rr , : ! :</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="31"> Note that there is a peak on now (H*) -- as there was in Figure 1 -- but now a striking valley (L) occurs just before this peak.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="32"> While other intonational features, such as overall tune or pitch range, 4 may also provide information about cue phrase interpretation, so far we have found the most significant results by comparing accent and phrasing for cue and non-cue now.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="5" start_page="166" end_page="166" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4. Intonational Characteristics of Cue and Non-Cue Now
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> To investigate our hypothesis that cue and non-cue uses of Linguistic expressions can be distinguished intonationally, we conducted a study of the cue phrase now in recorded natural speech. Our corpus consisted of recordings of four days of &amp;quot;The Harry Gross Show: Speaking of Your Money&amp;quot;, recorded during the week of I February 1982 \[1S\]. In this Philadelphia radio call-in program, Gross offers financial advice to callers; for the 3 February show, he was joined by an accountant friend, Fred Levy. The four shows provided approximately ten hours of conversation between expert(s) and callers.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> We chose now to begin our study of cue phrases for several reasons. First, our corpus contained numerous instances of both cue and non-cue now (approximately 350 in all). In contrast, phrases such as anyway, anyhow, therefore, moreover, and furthermore appear fewer than ten times each. A second reason for our choice of now is that now often appears in conjunction with other cue phrases (as with well in 7, or I see now, now another thing, ok now, right now.) This allows us to study how adjacent cue phrases interact with one another. Third, now has a number of desirable phonetic characteristics. As it is monosyllabic, possible variation in stress patterns do not arise to complicate the analysis. Because it is completely voiced and introduces no segmental effects into the f0 contour, it is also easier to analyze pitch tracks reliably.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="166" end_page="166" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.1 Sample One
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Our first sample consisted of 48 occurrences of now -- all the instances from two sides of tapes of the show chosen at random. 5 The 48 tokens were produced by fifteen different speakers; 22.9% were produced by Harry Gross and 77.1% by other speakers.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> We analyzed this data in the following way: First, three people (including the authors) determined by ear whether individual tokens were cue or non-cue. We then digitized and pitch-tracked the intonational phrase containing each token, plus (where same speaker) the preceding and succeeding intonational phrases. For this study we compared cue and non-cue uses along several dimensions: 1) We examined whether each instance of now was accented and, if so, noted the type of accent employed. 2) We identified differences in phrasing, including in particular whether or not now represented an entire intermediate or intonational phrase. 3) We noted where now occurred positionally in its intonational and its intermediate phrase, 4. The pitch range of an intonational phrase is deemed by its topline - roughly, the highest peak in the f0 contour of the phrase - and the speaker's baseline - the lowest point the speaker realizes in normal speech, measured across all utterances. Since the baseline is rarely realized in an utterance, pitch ranges may be compared for a given speaker by comparing toplines.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> 5. Two instances were excluded from this sample since the phrasing was unavailable due to hesitation or interruption.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> whether first, not first but preceded only by other cue phrases, last, or none of these. 4) We looked at the type of intonational contour used over the phrase in which now occurred. 5) We noted when now occurred with (linearly adjacent to) other cue phrases. 6) We identified the position of the phrase containing now with respect to speaker turn. Of these, (1-3) turned out to distinguish between cue and non-cue now quite reliably. That is, accent type and phrasing distinguished between all 48 of the tokens in the sample.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> Just over one-third of our sample (17) were determined to be non-cue and just under two-thirds (31) cue. The first striking difference between the two appeared in phrasing, as illustrated in Table I: Of all the non-cue uses of now, none appeared as the only item in an intonational or intermediate phrase, while fully 42.0% of cue now represented entire intonational or intermediate phrases. (Of these 13 cue now's, 8 were t~c only lexical item in a full intonational phrase.) A X test of association between cue/noncu~ status and phrasing shows significance at the .005 level (X~(I)--9.8). 6 So, this sample suggests that now's which</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="166" end_page="166" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
INPHRASE WHOLEPHRASE
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> are set apart as separate intermediate or intonational phrases are very likely to be cue news.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Another clear distinction between cue and non-cue now's in this sample emerged when we examined the position of now within its intermediate phrase. As Table 2 illustrates, all 31 cue now's were 'first' (30 were absolutely first and</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="7" start_page="166" end_page="167" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
FIRST LAST OTHER
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"/>
    <Paragraph position="2"> 6. The x2 test measures the degree of association between two variables by calculating the probability (.p) that the disparity between expected and actual values in each cell is due to chance. The value  of X 2 itself for (n) degrees of freedom (d.f.) is an overall measure of this disparity. The data show in Table 1 have x2 = 9.8 for 1 d.f., p &lt; .005. That is, there is less than a .5% probability that this apparent association is due to chance. Roughly. p &lt; .01 or better isgenerally accepted as indicating 'statistical significance'; p &gt; .01 becomes more controversial; p &gt; .05 is generally considered not statistically significant; and p &gt; .2 is good indication of a lack of discernible association between two variables. So, the data in Table 1, which are significant at the .001 level, appear very reliably associated.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3">  one followed another cue phrase) in their phrase. Not only were these first in intermediate phrase -- they were also first in their (larger) intonational phrase. Only three non-cue now's occupied a similar position (again, with one following a cue phrase). However, I0 non-cue now's (58.8%) were last in their intermediate phrase -- and half of these were last in their intonational phrase. Again, the data show a very strong association (x&amp;quot;(2)=36.0, p &lt; .001). So, once intonational phrasing is determined, cue and non-cue now are generally distinguishable by position within the phrase, with cue now's tending to come first in intonational phrase and non-cue now's last (at least in intermediate phrase and often in intonational phrase as well).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Finally, cue and non-cue occurrences in this sample were distinguishable in terms of presence or absence of pitch accent -- and by type of pitch accent, where accented.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Because of the large number of possible accent types, and since there are competing reasons to accent or deaccent items, ./ we might expect these findings to be less clear than those for phrasing. In fact, although their interpretation is more complicated, the results are equally striking. The overzll results of the 46 occurrences from this sample for which accent type could be precisely determined 8 are presented in Table 3:  Note first that large numbers of cue and non-cue tokens were uttered with a H* or complex accent (34.5% of cue and fully 88.2% of non-cue), The chief similarity here lies in the use of the H* accent type, with 9 cue uses and 8 non-cue (and 2 other non-cue tokens are either H* or complex). Note also that cue now's were much more likely overall to be deaccented (44.8% vs. 13.3%). No non-cue now was uttered with a L* accent -- although 6 cue now's were.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> An even sharper distinction in accent type is found if we separate out those now's which form entire intermediate or intonational phrases from the analysis. (Recall that these tokens are all cue uses. These now's were always accented, since each such phrase must contain at least one pitch accent.) Of the 11 cue phrases representing entire phrases (and for which we can distinguish accent type precisely), 9 bore H* accents. This suggests that one similarity between cue and non-cue now .- the frequent H* accent 7. Such as, accenting to indicate contrastive stress or dcaccenting to indicate an item is already salient in the discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> 8. 2 cue now's were either L* or H* with a compressed pitch range -- might disappear if we limit our comparison to those now's forming part of larger intonational phrases. In fact, such is the ease, as illustrated in Table 4:  A ain, these results arc significant at the .001 level, (2)=28.1. The great majority (88.2%) of non-cue now's forming part of larger intonational phrases received a H* or complex pitch accent, while the majority (72.2%) of cue now's forming part of larger intonational phrases were deaccented. Since all other cue now's forming part of larger intonational phrases received a L* accent, only two now's forming part of larger intonational phrases are not distinguishable in terms of accent type -- the two deaccented non-cue now's. So, those cue now's not distinguishable from non-cue by being set apart as separate intonational phrases were generally so distinguishable in terms of accenting. Since neither of the deaccented non-cue now's appeared at the beginning of an intonational phrase -- as all cue now's did -- all of the instances of now in our sample were in fact distinguishable as cue or non-cue in terms of their position in phrase, phrasal compostion, and accent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> We also examined whether cue and non-cue now patterned differently in terms of appearance with other cue phrases, with the following results:</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="8" start_page="167" end_page="169" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
ALONE WITHCUE
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Somewhat counter-intuitively, non-cue now tended to appear more frequently than cue now with other cue phrases -- although generally these other cue phrases were also used in their non-cue sense, e.g., right now. The co~ecurrence is not, however, statistically significant (x (1)=1.6, p &gt; .2), At any rate, the possibility that listeners identify cue now by its co-occurrence with other cue phrases receives no support from our data. Examination of the intonational contour used with phrases containing cue and non-cue now, and of the location of these phrases within speaker turn also produced no significant results.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> So, we were able to hypothesize from this sample that cue and non-cue now are characterizable in the following ways:  Non-cue now forms part of larger intonational phrases and tends to be accented and to receive a It* or complex pitch accent. All non,cue uses in the sample did form part of larger intonational phrases and all but two .- which were deaccented -- were accented with a It* or complex accent. Cue now seems to form two classes: One class is generally set apart as a separate intermediate or intonational phrase. Something under half of our sample fell into this category. The other class, which constituted just over half of our sample, forms part of a larger intonational phrase and is either deaccented or uttered with a L* accent. Both classes share the property of appearing in initial intonational phrase position.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> In summary, non-cue now is always distinct from cue now in our sample in terms of a combination of accent type, position in intonational phrase, and overall composition of the intermediate or intonational phrase. Thus we hypothesize that hearers might be able to distinguish between the two uses of now in three'ways: by noting whether now formed a separate intermediate (or intonational) phrase, by locating now positionally within its intonational phrase, and by identifying the presence or absence of a pitch accent on now and the type of such accent where present. To test the validity of these hypotheses, we replicated our study with a second sample from the same corpus.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="168" end_page="168" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.2 Sample Two
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> For our second sample, we examined the first 52 instances of now taken from another four randomly chosen sides of tapes. 9 This sample included tokens from fifteen speakers, with exactly half produced by the host and half by others. I0 This time, six people (including the authors) determined whether instances were cue or non-cue before we analyzed the intonational features. We next examined phrasing and accent used with these tokens to test the hypotheses derived from our first sample.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Again, just over one third of our sample (20) were determined to be non-cue and just under two-thirds (32) cue.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> The striking differences in phrasing noted between cue and non-cue now in sample one were again present in sample two: Again, around 40% (13) of cue now's formed separate intermediate (8) or intonational (5) phrases; only one of the 20 non-cue now's formed a separate intermediate phrase and none a separate intonational phrase. These results were significant at the .005 level -- again strong evidence of association between cue/non-cue status and phrasal composition. When we tested position of now within its intonational phrase in sample two, we again found that cue now generally began the intonational phrase: All but one cue now (this ended its phrase) began 9. We excluded 2 tokens from these tapes because of lack of available information about phrasing or accent and 5 others because our informants were unable to decide whether the now was cue or non-cue.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> 10.We speak to this issue below.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> its phrase; again, most (60%) non-cue now's came last in phrase, with two first. These results were significant at the .001 level.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> Finally, our hypotheses about accent type were also borne out by our second study: The division of all cue and non-cue now's by accent type appears even more pronounced in the second study: Of 20 non-cue now's, 85% of non-cue were H* or complex and the rest deaccented; while of 31 cue now's, 58.1% were deaccented, 19.4% H* or complex, and 22.6% L*. So, while non-cue now's are almost identical to those in the first sample, cue now's are more distinguished here from non-cue. When instances of now forming entire intermediate or intonational phrases are removed.from the second sample, the accenting of cue and non-cue now is even more distinct: All cue now's forming part of a larger phrase are deaccented, while only 15.8% of non-cue now are; the rest of the non-cue now's receive a H* or complex accent (p &lt; .001). So, our second sample confirmed our hypotheses that cue and non-cue now can be differentiated intonationally in terms of position within intonational phrase, composition of intermediate or intonational phrase, and choice of accent.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="168" end_page="169" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.3 Speaker Independence
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Although our second sample did confirm our initial hypotheses, the preponderance of tokens in both samples from one (professional) speaker might well be of concern.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> To test this, we compared characteristics of phrasing and accent for host and non-host data over the combined samples (n=lO0). The results showed no significant differences between host and caller tokens in terms of the hypotheses proposed from our first sample and confirmed by our second: First, host (n=37) and callers (n=63) produced cue and non-cue tokens in roughly similar proportions -- 40.5% non-cue for the host and 34.9% for his callers (p &gt; .5). Similarly, there was no distinction between host and non-host data in terms of choice of accent type, or accenting vs. deaccenting (p &gt; .I). Our hypothesis about the significance of position within intonational phrase holds for both host and non-host data with significance at the .001 level in each case. However, in tendency to set cue now apart as a separate intonational or intermediate phrase, there was an interesting distinction between host and caller: While callers tended to choose from among the two options for cue now in almost equal numbers (48.8% of their cue now's are separate phrases), the host chose this option only 27.3% of the time. While analysis of data for callers and for all speakers shows that the relationship between cue use and separate phrase is significant at the .001 level, this relationship is not significant for the host data. However, although host and caller data differ in the proportion of occurrences of the two classes of cue now which emerge from our data as a whole, the existence of the classes themselves are confirmed. Where the host did not produce cue now's set apart as separate intonational or intermediate phrases, he always produced cue now's which were deaccented or accented with a L* accent. So, while individual speakers  may choose different strategies to realize cue now, they appear to choose from among the same limited number of options. In sum, the hypotheses proposed on the basis of our first sample are borne out by our analysis of the second -- and remain significant even when we eliminate the host from our sample.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="3" start_page="169" end_page="169" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.4 Distinguishing Cue and Non-Cue Usage in Text
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> Our conclusion from this study that intonational features play a crucial role in the distinction between cue and non-cue usage in speech clearly poses problems for text. Do readers use strategies different from hearers to make this distinction, and, ff so, what might they be? Are there perhaps orthographic correlates of the intonational features which we have found to be important in speech? As a first step toward resolving these questions, we examined the orthographic features of the transcripts of our corpus (which were prepared without particular consideration of intonational features) and made a preliminary examination of two sets of typescript interactions.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> We examined transcriptions of all tokens of now in both our samples to determine whether phrasing was indicated orthographicaUy. II Of all those instances of now (n--60) that were absolutely first in their intonational phrase, 56.7% (34) were preceded by punctuation -- a comma, dash, or end punctuation. 28.3% (17) were first in speaker turn, and thus othographicaUy 'marked' by indication of speaker name. It should be noted that these units so distinguished were not necessarily syntactically well-formed units. So, in 85% (51) of cases, first position in intonational phrase was marked in the transcription orthographically. No now's that were not absolutely first in.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> their intonational phrase (in particular, none that were merely first in intermediate phrase) were so marked. Of those 23 now's coming last in an intermediate or intonational phrase, however, only 60.9% (14) are immediately followed by a similar orthographic clue. Finally, of the 13 instances of now which formed separate intonational phrases, only 2 were so marked orthographically -- by being both preceded and followed by some punctuation.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> None of the now's forming only complete intermediate phrases were so marked.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> These findings suggest that only the intonational feature 'first in intonational phrase' has any clear orthographic correlate. However, since this feature does characterize 90.1% of the 63 cue now's in our spoken data (merging both samples) -- and since 85.0% of these cue now's are also orthographically marked for position as well (so that 80.1% of cue now's can be orthographically distinguished) -- it seems that this correlation between intonation and orthography may be a useful one to pursue. It is also possible that a perusal of text, rather than transcribed speech, might indicate more orthographic clues to cue/non-cue disambiguation. We are currently examining two sets of 11.No instances of capitalization or other othographic marking of nuclear stress appear in any of the transcripts.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> typescripts 12 of task-oriented text interactions.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>