LINGUIST List 13.1009

Fri Apr 12 2002

Diss: Phonology: Chahal "Intonation..."

Editor for this issue: Karolina Owczarzak <karolinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. danac75, Phonology: Chahal "Modeling the Intonation of Lebanese Arabic..."

New Dissertation Abstract

Institution: University of Melbourne
Program: Department of Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2001

Author: Dana Chahal 

Dissertation Title: 
Modeling the Intonation of Lebanese Arabic using the
Autosegmental-Metrical Framework: A Comparison with English

Linguistic Field: Phonology, Phonetics

Subject Language: Standard Arabic, English

Dissertation Director 1: Janet Fletcher


Dissertation Abstract: 

This thesis develops a model of Lebanese Arabic intonation using the
Autosegmental-Metrical framework of intonational phonology,and
investigates certain aspects of that model experimentally.

The proposed model of Lebanese Arabic intonation (chapter 2) posits a
prosodic hierarchy for the language, which comprises three prominence
levels- lexical stress, pitch accent and nuclear accent, and three
intonationally-relevant prosodic constituents- the intonational
phrase, the intermediate phrase and the prosodic word. The model
accounts for the tonal patterns of the language using a tonal
inventory of pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones. Pitch
accents ca be monotonal or bitonal, and associate to lexically
stressed syllables, contributing to the prominence patterns of the
language. Phrase accents mark the right edges of intermediate phrases
adn display a secondary association to the right edge of the nuclear
accented word. Boundary tones mark the edges of intonational
phrases. Three tonal implementation rules are also postulated for the
language: downstep, upstep and final lowering.

The quantitative analysis investigates cues to the three prominence
levels and the three prosodic boundary types, and also examines the
rising bitonal pitch accents posited for the language. It is found
that accented and nuclear accented syllables are higher in pitch,
longer, louder, and display more peripheral vowel formant
characteristics than stressed but unaccented vowels (chapter 3). The
investigation of the intonational and phonetic realization of broad
verus narrow focus in that chapter also shows that the relationship
between target peaks within an utterance plays a role in signaling a
particular focus interpretaton. As for the investigaton of prosodic
boundaries (chapter 4), it is found that accented syllables preceding
the right edge of intonational phrase, intermediate phrase, and
prosodic word boundaries display progressively earlier peak alignment
the higher the level of the boundary. Accordingly, peak alignment in
Lebanese Arabic is argued to constitute a phonetic correlate for
prosodic constituency in the language. The investigation of the rising
bitonal pitch accents (chapter 5) shows that the two turning points of
the rise show stable alignment and scaling characteristics, while the
accent gesture as a whole displays an invariant time course. Peak
alignment differences within these rising bitonal accents provide
confirmation for their phonological representation as L+H* accents.