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Copyright by Niamh Eileen Kelly 2015 the Dissertation Committee for Niamh Eileen Kelly Certifies That This Is the Approved Version of the Following Dissertation Copyright by Niamh Eileen Kelly 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Niamh Eileen Kelly certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: An Experimental Approach to the Production and Perception of Norwegian Tonal Accent Committee: Rajka Smiljani´c, Supervisor Scott Myers Megan Crowhurst Harvey Sussman Gjert Kristoffersen An Experimental Approach to the Production and Perception of Norwegian Tonal Accent by Niamh Eileen Kelly, B.A., M.A. DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN May 2015 You don't set out to build a wall! You don't say, \I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built." You don't start there. You say, \I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid." And you do that every single day and soon you have a wall. - Will Smith Acknowledgments The work that resulted in this dissertation was a collaborative effort, and I have many people to thank. I could not have done this without the support of my committee, whom I sincerely thank: Rajka, for unfaltering support and encouragement, not to mention extensive comments and guidance in all aspects of the research and writing, as well as understanding, affirmation, and belief in me. For constant confidence and help, whenever needed. Scott, for solid advice on experiments and writing, and for always being available to redirect when necessary! Megan, for very beneficial experiences as a research assistant, for very practical ad- vice about academia, and for inspired perspectives on this work. Harvey, for enthusiasm and willingness to learn about Norwegian tones, also for being a wonderful example of an academic who truly enjoys teaching. Gjert, for con- stant guidance and insight on the relevant literature, for enthusiasm beginning with the very first ideas for this work, for extensive help in finding target words and creating the stimuli sentences, and for confidence in my abilities. To all in the Department of Linguistics; professors, colleagues, staff: thank you for such a supportive, motivating, warm environment. I am also very grateful for funding in the form of TAships, RAships, and AIships. These have provided me with invaluable experience and also allowed me to develop my teaching skills, something that I have enjoyed tremendously. To all at NTNU who kindly allowed me to use their facilities, helped with participant recruitment and also made me feel very welcome: Wim van Dommelen, Jacques Koreman, Terje Lohndal, Dawn Behne. I would like to thank Allison Wetterlin, Arnold Dalen, Thorstein Fretheim, Randi Nilsen, Stian H˚arstadand Jørn Almberg for their advice and guidance. Thanks to all participants in the experiments. I also thank Johan, Hilde and Olve for their hospitality in Trondheim. I had a lot of assistance with translations of fliers and posters and consent forms, for which I especially thank Johan and Øystein. I would also like to thank Miquel Simonet for guidance on how v to use PsychoPy, Katrin Schneider for her advice on designing perception experiments, and Grzegorz Dogil for the opportunity to spend time at the University of Stuttgart. I could not have done this without the unwavering support of my family. I am thankful to my parents for unending love and encouragement, to Deirdre, Triona and Eoin and to my friends in Ireland and all over the world, for love and support. My life in Austin would not have been as joyful without the compan- ionship, support and laughter shared with so many wonderful friends. Stacy, Stephanie, Robyn, Lauren, Sean, Cindy, Alex, Whitney, Aimee, Justin, Brian, Taylor, Oren, Brooks, Megan, and all who have been part of my life here, thank you for all the good times. My second family, the Bennetts, thank you for always being there for me. Finally, I thank the National Science Foundation for supporting the research used as the basis for this dissertation (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant No. 1322700). vi An Experimental Approach to the Production and Perception of Norwegian Tonal Accent Publication No. Niamh Eileen Kelly, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisor: Rajka Smiljani´c This dissertation examines the lexical tonal accent contrast of the Trøndersk dialect of East Norwegian from the perspective of both production and per- ception. The goal of the production study was to conduct an in-depth inves- tigation of the tonal accent realization in this understudied dialect, as well as to examine how the lexical accents are impacted by pragmatic focus and sentential intonation. The Trøndersk dialect is unusual typologically in that it exhibits a tonal contrast on monosyllabic words. Therefore, the current study examines the contrast on disyllabic and monosyllabic words. Ten speakers were recorded reading target monosyllabic and disyllabic words representing each accent, in noncontrastive and contrastive focus, and also at the right edge of an accent phrase (AP). The goal of the perception study was to determine what cues listeners use to identify the accents. The results of the acoustic analysis revealed that the main correlate of the disyllabic accent distinction in this dialect was in the timing of the F0 contour, with accent 2 having a later alignment of F0 landmarks and a higher F0 minimum than accent 1. In contrastive focus, the accent contrast was found to be enhanced. Accent 1 showed an expanded pitch range and accent 2 an even later alignment of the HL contour compared to noncontrastive focus. When produced at the end of an AP, both accents had a higher F0 minimum and lower AP boundary tone compared to AP-medial position. The AP-final position vii also had an influence on segment duration, such that the stressed vowels were shorter and final vowels were longer compared to the AP-medial position. The results of the production experiments thus revealed that contrastive focus and AP-final position both affected pitch cues even though these cues are primarily used to distinguish the lexical pitch contrasts. However, the variation in pitch contour introduced by these factors did not diminish the lexical contrast. In fact, the asymmetrical impact of focus on accent 1 and accent 2 words enhanced the distinction between the two accents. For the monosyllabic contrast, the results revealed that in a noncon- trastive focus realization, words with the circumflex accent have a wider HL contour compared to the unmarked accent. In contrastive focus, both accents have a wider pitch range and later low tone alignment. Unlike the effect of contrastive focus on disyllabic words where this increased the timing differ- ence between the accents, the timing of the monosyllabic accents changed in the same direction in contrastive focus. Phonologically long vowels were also lengthened in this condition. Based on the production results, a categorization of stimuli with manip- ulated pitch contours was conducted. This experiment tested which acoustic cues (height and alignment of F0 minimum, and alignment of F0 maximum and turning point from maximum to minimum) are necessary for the perception of the tonal contrast. The results are consistent with the production findings in that changes in all of the examined acoustic cues contributed to the shift in accent categorization. The later timing of the main F0 landmarks (F0 max- imum, F0 minimum and turning point from maximum to minimum) induced accent 2 identification. Raising F0 minimum height also led to more accent 2 responses. The analysis of the perception patterns furthermore revealed that the effect of a later timing of F0 minimum was weak unless combined with a later timing of the other F0 landmarks, or a higher F0 minimum level, all of which contributed to more accent 2 responses. These results indicate that accent 1 is characterized by an early fall, and accent 2 by a salient initial high tone. This comprehensive investigation provided an in-depth description of the monosyllabic and disyllabic accents in this understudied, more conserva- tive dialect that is being replaced by less conservative urban varieties. This viii contributes to the literature on Scandinavian accentology. Furthermore, this study adds to the literature on the realization of focus in tonal accent lan- guages, and how prosodically marked focus and sentence intonation interact with lexical accents. Finally, this work provides insights into how production and perception constraints shape processing of pitch variation. ix Table of Contents Acknowledgments v Abstract vii List of Tables xiii List of Figures xvi Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Chapter 2. Background 3 2.1 Previous Research into Scandinavian Tonal Accent . 3 2.1.1 The Trøndersk Variety of Norwegian . 5 2.2 The Tonal Accent Contrast . 6 2.2.1 The Disyllabic Accent Contrast . 6 2.2.2 The Monosyllabic Accent Contrast . 8 2.2.3 The Effect of Sentence-Level Intonation . 9 2.2.4 The Prosodic Effect of Focus . 11 2.3 The Perception of F0 . 13 2.3.1 Perception of Lexical Tonal Accents . 14 2.4 Goals and Research Questions . 15 2.5 Outline . 19 Chapter 3. Experiment 1: Disyllabic Accent Realization in Broad Focus and Contrastive Focus 20 3.1 Methods . 20 3.1.1 Participants . 20 3.1.2 Materials . 21 3.1.3 Procedure . 23 x 3.1.4 Measurements and Analysis . 23 3.2 Results . 27 3.3 Discussion . 38 Chapter 4. Experiment 2: Interaction of Disyllabic Accent Re- alization with Higher Level Intonation 46 4.1 Methods . 46 4.1.1 Materials . 46 4.1.2 Measurements and Analysis . 47 4.2 Results . 48 4.3 Discussion . 58 Chapter 5. Experiment 3: Monosyllabic Accent Realization in Broad Focus and Contrastive Focus 61 5.1 Methods .
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