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<Paper uid="W97-1205">
  <Title>Can pitch accent type convey information status in yes-no questions?</Title>
  <Section position="3" start_page="29" end_page="29" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2 Dialogue Corpus
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The corpus analysed consists of task-oriented dialogues between six pairs of Bari Italian speakers. The task, based on the HCRC Map Task (Anderson et al, 1991), involves verbal co-operation (via auditory channel only) between two participants, each having a map, with the aim of transferring as accurately as possible a given route from one map to the other. There are a number of discrepancies in placement and positioning of the landmarks on the maps. Since our aim was to examine intonation contours, the landmark names contained mainly sonorants and were controlled for word stress pattern.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="29" end_page="29" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 Intonation analysis
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The intonation analysis employs a modified version of the ToBI transcription system (Beckman and Ayers 1994) using two tones, H (high) and L (low). When they occur in pitch accents, one tone is starred, indicating association with a metrically strong syllable (Pierrehumbert 1980). They may also function as boundary markers for one of two phrase types: intermediate (or minor), indicated by &amp;quot;-&amp;quot; after H or L, and intonation (or major) phrase, marked with &amp;quot;%&amp;quot;. The pitch accents referred to in this paper are L+H*, which involves a low pitch target just before a high accented syllable, H+L*, which involves a high pitch target immediately preceding a low accented syllable, and H*+L, a high target early in the accented syllable followed by a rapid fall (see Grice and Savino 1995 for a discussion of peak placement). In addition, H* and L* involve a high or low target, respectively, on the accented syllable, with no specification as to the pitch contour flanking it. The boundary tones referred to are L- and the combination L-L%, both of which give a low pitch value at the end of the phrase, and the combination L-H% which gives a slight rise up to the end of the phrase, with a low starting point at some distance before the endpoint.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="5" start_page="29" end_page="30" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Question types
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The questions occurring in our corpus are described with the coding scheme for conversational games used to describe the English HCRC Map Task corpus (Kowtko et al 1992, Carletta et al 1995). Conversational games are sequences of acts, referred to as moves, such as the possible sequence of QUERY-REPLY-ACKNOWLEDGE moves within a QUERY game. Since each move within a given game may have a distinct intonation pattern, we confine our analysis to individual moves.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The analysis here concentrates on QUERIES and CHECKS as described in 1 above, both of which are initiating moves within games of the same name. The Map Task coding scheme has another question-type where the speaker is attempting to get evidence that the transfer was successful, so that s/he can move onto the next game. This is called an ALIGN. Examples of ALIGNS might be &amp;quot;Have you drawn it?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;OK?&amp;quot;. They may seek information about new or old material within the discourse and may thus pattern with either of the above-mentioned question moves. Another move-type found in our corpus is not categorised in the current Map Task coding scheme, but may be fitted into the framework as a responding move which indicates that the communication has been unsuccessful. We refer to this move as OBJECT. It is used to point out that there has been a break-down in communication, such that the game cannot continue until common ground is re-established. OBJECT moves contrast with ACKNOWLEDGE moves.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> These latter indicate that communication has been successful, and encourage the interlocutor to proceed with the game.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Examples of OBJECT moves discussed below are of the type that are categorised elsewhere as 'echo questions' (inter alia Cruttenden 1986), because they echo, or repeat, all or part of what has just been said by the interlocutor. Because these types of OBJECT move are considered to be a category of question in the intonation literature, they are analysed here alongside moves of questioning force. However, since they could be responding within  one game as well as initiating another (sub)game, they cannot be classified as simple questions, which have only an initiating function (Carletta et al, 1995).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="30" end_page="31" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
5 Intonation and moves
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The intonation contours used for each type of move will be discussed and exemplified below, along with the dialogue context from which the example has been excised (where G is the route giver and F the follower). A nulnber of examples are accompanied by F0 traces. The basenames of the associated speech and F0 files are given in angled brackets.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> QUERY Moves - QUERIES have a risingfalling intonation pattern, rising up to the accented syllable and down from it, transcribed as L+H* L-L%. The final boundary tone may be H% instead of L%. An initial H* pitch accent (PA) is optional; it is not present in all examples of QUERY move.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  If the accented syllable is final in the phrase, the fall on that syllable is curtailed substantially, as illustrated in Grice et al (1995). If the focus (see e.g. Gussenhoven 1983 for a definition of focus) is not on the final lexical item in the phrase (henceforth referred to as non-final), the PA on the focussed item is followed by an intermediate phrase (ip) boundary. The rest of the question constitutes another ip which has a reduced range and has an identical PA and boundary tone.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> That second ip is similar to what has been described by Crystal (1969) as a subordinate tone group. For a theoretical account see Grice (1995) which refers to analogous cases  context: F: ... no, aspetta, scusa, la la strada passa da sotto, hai detto (...no, wait a minute, sorry, the the path goes underneath, you said) G: si deg, da sotto l'albergo Malaga (yes, under hotel Malaga) \[pause\] F: ecco, e poi la la il devo questa strada devo farla ehm tocc.., devo devo ehm dove dove la faccio terminate? Fa un GIRO intorno all'albergo? (right, and then the the I have to this - path - I have to erm touch... I have to erm where where do I make it finish ? Does it go ROUND the hotel?) G: ecco, (right,) The above case involves what appears to be reaccenting, as discussed by Cruttenden (1993), on the word albergo (hotel), which is given in the dialogue context. In cases where the subject occupies sentence-final position, it also constitutes a subordinate intermediate phrase with its own accent, the focal PA being in the first ip, as in 3.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4">  speaker confidence as to the correctness of the inferred material it contains, that is, the degree of speaker confidence that the material is old. CHECKS which are tentative may have an intonation contour which is indistinguishable from that of QUERIES; in terms of information structure, neither contain information which is confidently deemed by the current speaker to be old. An example of a tentative CHECK is in 4 below.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> (So there's a gentle curve even HERE?)  Confident CHECKS have a different pitch accent: H*+L. Moreover, there is no reaccenting of post-focal material. Where the focus is non-final, the focussed pitch accent is followed by a word receiving a strong prominence without a pitch excursion (in British School terms, the appropriate syllable in the word is stressed but not accented; Crystal 1969). We refer to such a prominence as a suppressed accent. In example 5 below, there is an accent on &amp;quot;devo&amp;quot; and a suppressed accent on &amp;quot;scritta&amp;quot;.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> 5. &lt;non-devo&gt; non DEvo andare verso la scritta</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="7" start_page="31" end_page="32" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
H*+L L%
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> context: G: ... continua sempre come grossa curva intorno tutto al lago Anomalo fino a un certo punto. Ci sei con la mente? (...keep going in a big curve around lake Anomalo until a certain point. Are you with me ?) F: No. Altora, il lago Anomalo devo ehm praticamente non DEVO andare verso la scritta (No. So, lake Anomalo, I have to erm practically... I don &amp;quot;t HA VE to go towards the wriang) An equivalent syntactic structure to that in example 3, where the subject is sentence-final, is in 6 below. In both examples 5 and 6, the choice of H*+L pitch accent is motivated by the perceptual impression of a sharp fall on the accented syllable. In fact, the F0 peak occurs very early in the accented syllable in contrast to the F0 peak on L+H* pitch accents which generally occurs in the second half of the syllable.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> It is unclear whether the analysis should include a L- boundary after &amp;quot;devo&amp;quot;, with the implication that what follows is an ip with no pitch accent, a combination so far only postulated for tags. Since without further analysis, for example of duration data, there is no obvious way of distinguishing between the two transcriptions, we opt provisionally for the analysis without an ip boundary.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  (So, all in all, they are close, bananas and melons and lake anomalo. ) ALIGN Moves - ALIGNS of the type &amp;quot;Va bene?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Ci sei?&amp;quot; (Are you with me?) are realised with the same intonation pattern as for QUERIES. Although example 7 below has a L% boundary tone, they may have either L% or H%.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 7. &lt;va-bene&gt; va BEne? L+H* L-L% context: G: allora quindi il percorso lo facciamo al contrario. Va bene? (well so we'll do the route backwards.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Alright?) These constitute the majority of ALIGNS. However, they may also involve seeking confirmation of inferred material. The intonation pattern used in these cases depends on the speaker's degree of confidence as to the correctness of his/her inferral, as in the CHECK category above.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> OBJECT moves In Bari Italian, the OBJECT moves we have examined have the same tonal analysis as QUERIES of the yes-no kind. It is not the tonal analysis but rather other parameters which appear to distinguish OBJECTS from QUERIES, viz. &amp;quot;breathy&amp;quot; voice quality and/or expanded range, both of which can signal incredulity. An example from the corpus is in 8.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> 8. &lt;anima-mia&gt; Anima rnla (L+)H* L+H* L-L% context: G: C'e l'hai il ristorante Anima mia? (Do you have it, restaurant &amp;quot;Anima Mia&amp;quot;?) F: Anima Mia?! It might be argued that although the actual lexical material in OBJECT moves is old, the degree of speaker confidence that the information is shared is low. In example 8, the speaker is, amongst other things, conveying the fact that the interlocutor's assumption that the information is shared is incorrect.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> A summary of the moves and their pitch accents is in table 1. It is clear that in two types of move either L+H* or H*+L can be used, thus precluding a one-to-one correspondence between move-type and pitch accent.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8">  For completeness, example 9 is given below of a command, referred to as an INSTRUCT move, which is non-final in a list of commands.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> 9. &lt;legger&gt; aDESso PIEga verso il BASso leggerMENte H* L- H* !H* L* L-H% (Now turn slightly downwards,) This pattern is similar to that given for 'questions' in Standard Italian, but is distinct from any of the patterns found for the questions examined here for Bail Italian. Another non-final pattern (H* H-H%) is discussed in Grice et al (1995).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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