Intonation in Cantonese
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Pitch Contour Stylization by Marking Voice Intonation
(IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2021 Pitch Contour Stylization by Marking Voice Intonation Sakshi Pandey1, Amit Banerjee2, Subramaniam Khedika3 Computer Science Department South Asian University New Delhi, India Abstract—The stylization of pitch contour is a primary task [10], parabolic [11], and B-splines [12]. In addition, low-pass in the speech prosody for the development of a linguistic model. filtering is also used for preserving the slow time variations The stylization of pitch contour is performed either by statistical in the pitch contours [6]. Recently, researchers have studied learning or statistical analysis. The recent statistical learning the statistical learning models, using hierarchically structured models require a large amount of data for training purposes deep neural networks for modeling the F0 trajectories [13] and and rely on complex machine learning algorithms. Whereas, the sparse coding algorithm based on deep learning auto-encoders statistical analysis methods perform stylization based on the shape of the contour and require further processing to capture the voice [14]. In general, the statistical learning models require a intonations of the speaker. The objective of this paper is to devise large amount of data and uses complex machine learning a low-complexity transcription algorithm for the stylization of algorithms for training purposes [13], [14]. On the other hand, pitch contour based on the voice intonation of a speaker. For the statistical analysis models decompose the pitch contours this, we propose to use of pitch marks as a subset of points as a set of functions based on the shape and structure of for the stylization of the pitch contour. -
The Creative Artist: a Journal of Theatre and Media Studies, Vol 13, 2, 2017
The Creative Artist: A Journal of Theatre and Media Studies, Vol 13, 2, 2017 MANDARIN CHINESE PINYIN: PRONUNCIATION, ORTHOGRAPHY AND TONE Sunny Ifeanyi Odinye, PhD Department of Igbo, African and Asian Studies Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT Pinyin is essential and most fundamental knowledge for all serious learners of Mandarin Chinese. If students are learning Mandarin Chinese, no matter if they are beginners or advanced learners, they should be aware of paramount importance of Pinyin. Good knowledge in Pinyin can greatly help students express themselves more clearly; it can also help them in achieving better listening and reading comprehension. Before learning how to read, write, or pronounce Chinese characters, students must learn pinyin first. This study aims at highlighting the importance of Pinyin and its usage in Mandarin for any students learning Mandarin Chinese. The research work adopts descriptive research method. The work is divided into introduction, body and conclusion. 1. INTRODUCTION Pinyin (spelled sounds) has vastly increased literacy throughout China and beyond; eased the classroom agonies of foreigners studying Mandarin Chinese; afforded the blind a way to read the language in Braille; facilitated the rapid entry of Chinese on computer keyboards and cell phones. "About one billion Chinese citizens have mastered pinyin, which plays an important role in both Chinese language education and international communication," said Wang Dengfeng, vice-chairman of the National Language Committee and director of language department of the Education Ministry. "Hanyu Pinyin not only belongs to China but also belongs to the world. It is now everywhere in our daily lives," Wang said, "Pinyin will continue playing an important role in the modernization of China." (Xinhua News, 2008). -
Vocal Expression in Recorded Performances of Schubert Songs
Musicae Scientiae © 2007 by ESCOM European Society Fall 2007, Vol XI, n° 2, 000-000 for the Cognitive Sciences of Music Vocal expression in recorded performances of Schubert songs RENEE TIMMERS Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information University of Nijmegen •ABSTRACT This exploratory study focuses on the relationship between vocal expression, musical structure, and emotion in recorded performances by famous singers of three Schubert songs. Measurement of variations in tempo, dynamics, and pitch showed highly systematic relationships with the music’s structural and emotional characteristics, particularly as regards emotional activity and valence. Relationships with emotional activity were consistent across both singers and musical pieces, while relationships with emotional valence were piece-specific. Clear changes in performing style over the twentieth century were observed, including diminishing rubato, an increase followed by a decrease of the use of pitch glides, and a widening and slowing of vibrato. These systematic changes over time concern only the style of performance, not the strategies deployed to express the structural and emotional aspects of the music. 1. INTRODUCTION Recordings form a rich source of information about musical performances from the past, and are especially indispensable as a source for histories of performing style (e.g., Philip, 1992; Day, 2000; Fabian, 2003). These investigations have highlighted changes in performance characteristics such as tempo, rubato, or the use of vibrato and glissandi in singing and string performances. For example, a change in attitude towards rubato was observed in the first half of the twentieth century (Philip, 1992; Hudson, 1994; Brown, 1999): tempo fluctuations in recorded performances show a trend related to this change in attitude from frequent tempo changes to smaller and gradual tempo modifications. -
Formal Grammar, Usage Probabilities, and English Tensed Auxiliary Contraction (Revised June 15, 2020)
Formal grammar, usage probabilities, and English tensed auxiliary contraction (revised June 15, 2020) Joan Bresnan 1 At first sight, formal theories of grammar and usage-based linguistics ap- pear completely opposed in their fundamental assumptions. As Diessel (2007) describes it, formal theories adhere to a rigid division between grammar and language use: grammatical structures are independent of their use, grammar is a closed and stable system, and is not affected by pragmatic and psycholinguis- tic principles involved in language use. Usage-based theories, in contrast, view grammatical structures as emerging from language use and constantly changing through psychological processing. Yet there are hybrid models of the mental lexicon that combine formal representational and usage-based features, thereby accounting for properties unexplained by either component of the model alone (e.g. Pierrehumbert 2001, 2002, 2006) at the level of word phonetics. Such hybrid models may associate a set of ‘labels’ (for example levels of representation from formal grammar) with memory traces of language use, providing detailed probability distributions learned from experience and constantly updated through life. The present study presents evidence for a hybrid model at the syntactic level for English tensed auxiliary contractions, using lfg with lexical sharing (Wescoat 2002, 2005) as the representational basis for the syntax and a dynamic exemplar model of the mental lexicon similar to the hybrid model proposals at the phonetic word level. However, the aim of this study is not to present a formalization of a particular hybrid model or to argue for a specific formal grammar. The aim is to show the empirical and theoretical value of combining formal and usage-based data and methods into a shared framework—a theory of lexical syntax and a dynamic usage-based lexicon that includes multi-word sequences. -
Action Formation with Janwai in Cantonese Chinese Conversation
This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Action formation with janwai in Cantonese Chinese conversation Liesenfeld, Andreas Maria 2019 Liesenfeld, A. M. (2019). Action formation with janwai in Cantonese Chinese conversation. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/102660 https://doi.org/10.32657/10220/47757 Downloaded on 25 Sep 2021 22:28:06 SGT ACTION FORMATION WITH JANWAI IN CANTONESE CHINESE CONVERSATION ANDREAS MARIA LIESENFELD SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES 2019 Action formation with janwai in Cantonese Chinese conversation Andreas Maria Liesenfeld School of Humanities and Social Sciences A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2019 Statement of Originality I hereby certify that the work embodied in this thesis is the result of original research, is free of plagiarised materials, and has not been submitted for a higher degree to any other University or Institution. 01/03/2019 . Date Andreas Maria Liesenfeld Authorship Attribution Statement This thesis contains material from one paper published from papers accepted at conferences in which I am listed as the author. Chapter 3 is published as Liesenfeld, Andreas. "MYCanCor: A Video Corpus of spoken Malaysian Cantonese." Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC). 7-12 May 2018. Miyazaki, Japan. (2018). http://aclweb.org/anthology/L18-1122. 01/03/2019 . Date Andreas Maria Liesenfeld Acknowledgements I would like to thank the people I have met in Perak, who have been so amiable and welcoming during my stay in Malaysia and who have made my work there such a pleasant and rewarding experience. -
Part 1: Introduction to The
PREVIEW OF THE IPA HANDBOOK Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet PARTI Introduction to the IPA 1. What is the International Phonetic Alphabet? The aim of the International Phonetic Association is to promote the scientific study of phonetics and the various practical applications of that science. For both these it is necessary to have a consistent way of representing the sounds of language in written form. From its foundation in 1886 the Association has been concerned to develop a system of notation which would be convenient to use, but comprehensive enough to cope with the wide variety of sounds found in the languages of the world; and to encourage the use of thjs notation as widely as possible among those concerned with language. The system is generally known as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Both the Association and its Alphabet are widely referred to by the abbreviation IPA, but here 'IPA' will be used only for the Alphabet. The IPA is based on the Roman alphabet, which has the advantage of being widely familiar, but also includes letters and additional symbols from a variety of other sources. These additions are necessary because the variety of sounds in languages is much greater than the number of letters in the Roman alphabet. The use of sequences of phonetic symbols to represent speech is known as transcription. The IPA can be used for many different purposes. For instance, it can be used as a way to show pronunciation in a dictionary, to record a language in linguistic fieldwork, to form the basis of a writing system for a language, or to annotate acoustic and other displays in the analysis of speech. -
Phonological Elision in Malaysian Cantonese Casual Speech
PHONOLOGICAL ELISION IN MALAYSIAN CANTONESE CASUAL SPEECH ONG YIN HSIAR NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2007 PHONOLOGICAL ELISION IN MALAYSIAN CANTONESE CASUAL SPEECH ONG YIN HSIAR (B. ARTS), UM A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE STUDIES NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2007 Acknowledgement How does a person say “thank you” when there are so many people to thank? This thesis is dedicated to my family, who encourage me to pursue my dream without a fear. They are my mentors and heroes that make my life complete. In my course of learning at NUS, I have had the benefit of wisdom from three supervisors. A/P Lee Cher Leng took me under her wing at the crucial moment when I was nearing completion of this research; Dr. Yan Xiuhong offered me insightful comments and guidance after my first supervisor Wee Lian Hee left NUS. But it was also Lian Hee who started me on the journey of Linguistics. Even though he had left NUS, modern technology had made it possible for me to obtain much help from him. I would have been lost if not for his suggestions and patience in keeping an eye almost word-by-word in my thesis. I would also like to thank everyone who contributed in any way to the completion of this project. I am particularly grateful for the National University of Singapore Research Scholarship (2005-2007), without which my life would be peppered with much physical hardship. On fieldwork, recordings and phonetic analyses, I am indebted to A/P Robbie Goh, Mr. -
Language Specific Peculiarities Document for Cantonese As
Language Specific Peculiarities Document for Cantonese as Spoken in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China 1. Dialects The name "Cantonese" is used either for all of the language varieties spoken in specific regions in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China and Hong Kong (i.e., the Yue dialects of Chinese), or as one particular variety referred to as the "Guangfu group" (Bauer & Benedict 1997). In instances where Cantonese is described as 'Cantonese "proper"' (i.e. used in the narrower sense), it refers to a variety of Cantonese that is spoken in the capital cities Guangzhou and Nanning, as well as in Hong Kong and Macau. This database includes Cantonese as spoken in the Guangdong and Guangxi Provinces of China only (i.e. not in Hong Kong); five dialect groups have been defined for Cantonese (see the following table)1. Three general principles have been used in defining these dialect groupings: (i) phonological variation, (ii) geographical variation, and (iii) lexical variation. With relation to phonological variation, although Cantonese is spoken in all of the regions listed in the table, there are differences in pronunciation. Differences in geographic locations also correlate with variations in lexical choice. Cultural differences are also correlated with linguistic differences, particularly in lexical choices. Area Cities (examples) Central Guangzhou, Conghua, Fogang (Shijiao), Guangdong Longmen, Zengcheng, Huaxian Group Northern Shaoguan, Qijiang, Lian Xian, Liannan, Guangdong Yangshan, Yingde, Taiping Group Northern -
A Dictionary of Chinese Characters: Accessed by Phonetics
A dictionary of Chinese characters ‘The whole thrust of the work is that it is more helpful to learners of Chinese characters to see them in terms of sound, than in visual terms. It is a radical, provocative and constructive idea.’ Dr Valerie Pellatt, University of Newcastle. By arranging frequently used characters under the phonetic element they have in common, rather than only under their radical, the Dictionary encourages the student to link characters according to their phonetic. The system of cross refer- encing then allows the student to find easily all the characters in the Dictionary which have the same phonetic element, thus helping to fix in the memory the link between a character and its sound and meaning. More controversially, the book aims to alleviate the confusion that similar looking characters can cause by printing them alongside each other. All characters are given in both their traditional and simplified forms. Appendix A clarifies the choice of characters listed while Appendix B provides a list of the radicals with detailed comments on usage. The Dictionary has a full pinyin and radical index. This innovative resource will be an excellent study-aid for students with a basic grasp of Chinese, whether they are studying with a teacher or learning on their own. Dr Stewart Paton was Head of the Department of Languages at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, from 1976 to 1981. A dictionary of Chinese characters Accessed by phonetics Stewart Paton First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. -
Mandarin Tone and English Intonation: a Contrastive Analysis
Mandarin tone and English intonation: a contrastive analysis Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors White, Caryn Marie Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 28/09/2021 10:31:23 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/557400 MANDARIN TONE AND ENGLISH INTONATION: A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS by 1 Caryn Marie White A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ORIENTAL STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 19 8 0 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of re quirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. i Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judg ment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholar ship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Timothy Light who suggested the topic of this thesis. -
The Significance of Scope in Modelling Tones in Chinese Branislav Gerazov, Gérard Bailly, Yi Xu
The significance of scope in modelling tones in Chinese Branislav Gerazov, Gérard Bailly, Yi Xu To cite this version: Branislav Gerazov, Gérard Bailly, Yi Xu. The significance of scope in modelling tones in Chinese. Sixth International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL2018), Jun 2018, Berlin, Germany. pp.183-187, 10.21437/TAL.2018-37. hal-01834964 HAL Id: hal-01834964 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01834964 Submitted on 11 Jul 2018 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. TAL2018, Sixth International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages 18-20 June 2018, Berlin, Germany The significance of scope in modelling tones in Chinese Branislav Gerazov1,2,Gerard´ Bailly2 and Yi Xu3 1 FEEIT, University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, Macedonia 2 Univ. Grenoble-Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble-INP, GIPSA-lab, 38000 Grenoble, France 3 Department of Speech, Hearing and Phonetic Sciences, University College London, UK [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract For each function that appears in a given utterance, the cor- The Superposition of Functional Contours (SFC) prosody responding NNCG is used to generate the elementary contours model decomposes the intonation and duration contours into for the different scopes that the function appears in. -
Language Management in the People's Republic of China
LANGUAGE AND PUBLIC POLICY Language management in the People’s Republic of China Bernard Spolsky Bar-Ilan University Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, language management has been a central activity of the party and government, interrupted during the years of the Cultural Revolution. It has focused on the spread of Putonghua as a national language, the simplification of the script, and the auxiliary use of Pinyin. Associated has been a policy of modernization and ter - minological development. There have been studies of bilingualism and topolects (regional vari - eties like Cantonese and Hokkien) and some recognition and varied implementation of the needs of non -Han minority languages and dialects, including script development and modernization. As - serting the status of Chinese in a globalizing world, a major campaign of language diffusion has led to the establishment of Confucius Institutes all over the world. Within China, there have been significant efforts in foreign language education, at first stressing Russian but now covering a wide range of languages, though with a growing emphasis on English. Despite the size of the country, the complexity of its language situations, and the tension between competing goals, there has been progress with these language -management tasks. At the same time, nonlinguistic forces have shown even more substantial results. Computers are adding to the challenge of maintaining even the simplified character writing system. As even more striking evidence of the effect of poli - tics and demography on language policy, the enormous internal rural -to -urban rate of migration promises to have more influence on weakening regional and minority varieties than campaigns to spread Putonghua.