Aspects of intonation and prosody in Bininj Gun-wok: an autosegmental-metrical analysis Judith Bishop Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics The University of Melbourne August 2002 Abstract This dissertation presents a qualitative and quantitative analysis of aspects of the intonation and prosody of an Australian polysynthetic language, Bininj Gun-wok (BGW; also referred to as Mayali). The theoretical framework is autosegmental-metrical phonology, as adapted to the description of intonation by Pierrehumbert (1980), Bruce (1977) and others. The analysis focuses principally on two dialects, Kuninjku and Manyallaluk Mayali (MM), with some reference to the Kunwinjku, Kune, Gun-Djeihmi and Kundedjnjenghmi dialects. One of the principal motivations for analysing intonation and prosody in BGW is to provide input to the developing field of intonational-prosodic typology, from the perspective of a language which is typologically interesting on at least two counts: its position in the Australian language family, and its polysynthetic character. This dissertation provides numerous auditory as well as visual records relating to the contents of the analysis. The provision of auditory records is an innovation intended to improve the accountability of the phonetic analysis and to facilitate typological comparison. The content of the chapters is as follows. In Chapter 1, I review the literature on intonation and prosody in polysynthetic languages (§1.2) and in Australian languages (§1.3), and highlight findings relating to possible parameters in intonational-prosodic typology (§1.3). I outline the grammatical and segmental phonological structures of BGW (§1.4) and describe the autosegmental-metrical theoretical framework (§1.5). I then discuss the ToBI model of intonation and prosody transcription (§1.6), and present the Bininj Gun-wok system of transcription (§1.7). In Chapter 2, I discuss the corpus of texts analysed in the preparation of the dissertation (§2.2). An overview of the basic intonational contours is presented (§2.3–2.5) and the prosodic constituent hierarchy of BGW is described (§2.6), drawing on illustrations from across the six dialects. The intonational grammar is described in §2.7. In Chapter 3, I review the literature on metrical structure in stress accent languages (§3.2), and analyse the organisation and derivation of metrical structure in the i Kuninjku and Manyallaluk Mayali dialects (§3.3–3.4), and its relationship to the assignment of intonational pitch accents within the phonological word. Chapter 4 presents an experiment to determine whether the acoustic correlates of metrical structure observed in other stress accent languages are also found in BGW (Kuninjku dialect). In Chapter 5, I apply a process of elimination to determine whether variations in the phonetic alignment of high pitch accent targets are potentially related to distinct phonological categories, or are conditioned by phonetic or prosodic context (§5.2.–5.4). I analyse patterns of transitional high F0 (§5.5), and discuss their implications for models of phonetic implementation in BGW. In Chapter 6, I present arguments for a previously undescribed level of prosodic constituency in BGW, the phonological phrase, and show how it is differentiated from other levels of prosodic constituency. Chapter 7 describes the lexical content of phonological phrases (§7.3), patterns of ‘prosodic integration’ of accented words in phonological phrases, and the distinct phrasing patterns of unaccented words (§7.4). Chapter 8 concludes the dissertation, providing an overview of the principal findings and their implications (§8.1), and discussing directions for future research (§8.2). ii Declaration This is to certify that • the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD except where indicated in the Preface; • due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used; • the thesis is less than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Signed JUDITH BISHOP 12th August, 2002 iii Preface The section on the Bininj Gun-wok ToBI transcription system (BGW-ToBI) presented in Chapter 1, section 1.7 of this dissertation, draws on a chapter jointly written with Dr Janet Fletcher, which is to be published in Prosodic Models and Transcription: Towards Prosodic Typology, edited by S.-A. Jun. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The material on the tone tier was written together with Dr Fletcher, after comparing our analyses of different dialects of BGW (my work on the Kuninjku, Kunwinjku, Manyallaluk Mayali and Kune dialects, and Dr Fletcher’s analyses of the Gun-Djeihmi and Kundedjnjenghmi dialects). The material relating to the break index tier is entirely my own. iv Acknowledgements My thanks and gratitude, first of all, to my Bininj Gun-wok language teachers and consultants during my five months’ fieldwork in Manyallaluk: Mary-Ann Kalamuka, †Hilda Dooley, Lily Dooley, Kirsten Dooley, Peter Bolgi and Anna Bolgi, †Reggie Miller and Margaret Miller, for their generosity in sharing their language, their patience, for laughing together, and for sharing stories and insights which have remained with me. Also to those who were personally kind and generous in various ways during my time at Manyallaluk: Mavis Jumbiri (for helping with the transcription of the story Ngarrarla and Wurruyung, and for giving me the tiny throat bones of wurruyung, which are the baby in the story), Carol Pamkal and Jinel Pamkal (for being like a younger sister during the five months), and my garrart, Judy Dalywater. To Murray Garde, my sincere and heartfelt thanks for generously sharing his recordings of Kuninjku speakers, which became so integral to this analysis. To my two supervisors, Nick Evans and Janet Fletcher, whose advice – stern when it was needed! – has been so valuable in shaping the final product, and whose encouragement has helped me through the most difficult phases. Finally, my love and gratitude, To my parents, Ted and Beryl; and to past and present friends in the lab, especially Bruce, Nick, and Dana (for showing it’s possible to finish!): for their warmth, encouragement, good humour and passionate conversations about downstep and peak alignment, blond babies and pink carpeting, and for sharing the odd cup of tea… to Karin, for her care and wonderful philosophical conversations, and Drew, for sharing and re-inspiring my pursuit of poetic ones, and to Simon, for his constant affection and amazing generosity, for keeping me well and making me smile, and for never losing sight of what is most important in living. v [blank page] vi Table of Contents CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 AIMS OF THE DISSERTATION.......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1.1 The project of intonational-prosodic typology................................................................................ 3 1.1.2 Definitions of key terms.................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 INTONATION AND PROSODY IN POLYSYNTHETIC LANGUAGES ...................................................................... 5 1.2.1 Previous studies of polysynthetic languages ................................................................................... 5 1.2.2 Polysynthetic languages and the role of intonation and prosody in relation to information structure........................................................................................................................ 6 1.3 PREVIOUS STUDIES OF INTONATION AND PROSODY IN AUSTRALIAN LANGUAGES........................................ 8 1.3.1 Wik-Mungkan.................................................................................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Dyirbal ............................................................................................................................................ 12 1.3.3 Kayardild ........................................................................................................................................ 13 1.3.4 Iwaidja............................................................................................................................................. 13 1.3.5 Overview of intonational-prosodic typology in Australian languages......................................... 15 1.3.5.1 Postlexical vs lexical uses of tone................................................................................................................15 1.3.5.2 Delimitative uses of tone..............................................................................................................................15 1.3.5.3 Culminative and prominence-lending uses of tone.....................................................................................16 1.3.5.4 Lexical and grammatical conditioning of intonation..................................................................................16 1.3.5.5 Relationships between intonation, prosody and information structure......................................................17 1.3.5.6 Contrastive modifications of the tonal space (pitch register).....................................................................17 1.4 FEATURES OF BGW RELEVANT TO INTONATION AND PROSODY ................................................................ 18 1.4.1 Syllable structure and syllable