Barcelona listeners’ auditory

impressions from a perceptive

point of view within the

framework of Amper

Wendy Elvira (UB) Josefina Carrera (UB) Ana Ma. Fernández Planas (UB) Paolo Roseano (UB-UPF) Domingo Román (U. Católica de Chile) Eugenio Martínez Celdrán (UB)

Index • Introduction

• Methodology – The software

– Listeners

– The experiments

• Identification of modality – Results for interrogatives

– Results for declaratives

– Average

– Reaction time

• Cohesion between dialects – Results for declaratives

– Results for interrogatives

– Reaction time

• Conclusions

• References

Introduction

• Are Catalan speakers able to correctly

identify the modality of Romance

languages?

• How they establish if two dialects are the

same when there are big acoustic

differences?

Introduction

• Prosody-perception studies – Modality identification follows universal rules when it

is not biased by the mother tongue (Gussenhoven, 2000)

– It has been claim that language discrimination by prosody is possible even in early stages of life (Mehler et al. 1988). A little research has been made with close related languages, though (Vicenik, 2013).

• Acoustic studies – Amper-Cat and acoustic differences among Romanic

languages (Fernández Planas et al. 2011)

– Language contact and prosody borrowing (Martínez Celdrán, 2011; Romera y Elordieta, 2013)

Methodology

• Female voice re-synthesis

– Without lexical content

– Keeps linguistic rhythm and intonational features

– Only paroxitone configurations (SVO)

– Same number of syllables

• 11 stimuli par modality

– test 1: 22

– test 2 y 3: 11

Stimuli

Barcelona

València

L’Alguer

• Spanish

Palencia

La Laguna

Granada

• Sardinian

Biddanoa Monteleone

• Italian

Siena

Pòrtu Turre

• Furlan

Gardiscja

Beivars

• Catalan

The software

• Boersma & Weenik’s Praat

– Experiment MFC 6

• For identification and discrimination tests

– The experiments were concatenated into a

collection and worked in a bigger script.

– The script used recollected the listener’s data,

ran the experiments and save them in a

previously determined order.

Listeners

• 31 students (male and female) from the

University of Barcelona

• Bilingual (Catalan-Spanish)

• Sub-classified by their L1

– (this variable will only be taken into account if

differences between listeners exist)

• training in synthetic stimulus given before

the task

The experiments

• Forced choice tests

• Second audition possible

• Oops button

• Break every each 25 trials

• ISI 800ms

Identification of modality

• Instruction: Please, say whether the

sentence you hear is more likely to be a

question or a statement.

Test type: Identification

(top-down processing)

Number of stimuli: 22

Number of trials: 44

Presentation: individually

Results (identification of modality) Declaratives Interrogatives Average

Italian (Siena) 3% 8% 6%

Catalan (València) 8% 5% 6%

Spanish (Palencia) 7% 8% 7%

Catalan (Barcelona) 15% 2% 8%

Spanish (Granada) 15% 8% 11%

Friulian (Gardisca) 23% 8% 15%

Friulian (Beivars) 60% 16% 38%

Spanish (La Laguna) 42% 39% 40%

Catalan (L'Alguer) 26% 66% 46%

Italian (Pórtu Turre) 18% 77% 48%

Sardinian (Biddanoa) 7% 95% 51%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100%

Italia

n (S

iena

)

Cat

alan

(Valèn

cia)

Spa

nish

(Palen

cia)

Cat

alan

(Bar

celona

)

Spa

nish

(Gra

nada

)

Furla

n (G

ardisc

a)

Furla

n (B

eiva

rs)

Spa

nish

(La

Lagu

na)

Cat

alan

(L'A

lgue

r)

Italia

n (P

ortu

Tur

re)

Sar

dini

an (B

idda

noa)

Declaratives

Interrogatives

Interrogatives

Spanish falling interrogatives

¡H* L%

A echo pattern in Catalan:

L+¡H* L%

Declaratives

Declaratives and interrogative

average

Cohesion between dialects

• Different dialects encode modality differently even when they belong to the same linguistic domain.

• So, do the listeners perceive the statements and questions of these dialects as if they were one? Or are they influenced by the acoustic cues and the would label them as different?

Discrimination test

• Do you think that this two sentences could belong to the same dialect?

Test type: AX (bottom-up processing)

Number of tests: 2

Interrogative yes/no sentences

Declarative sentences

Logical possibilities: AA/AA’ o AB

Number of trials: 121

Results declaratives

Descriptive stadistics

Multidimensional scaling

Cluster analysis: euclideic distance

Groups out of previous group.

BCN L'Alguer València Palència Granada La Laguna Gradisca Beivars Siena PortuTurre Biddanoa

BCN 93,5 45,2 80,6 41,9 22,6 9,7 58,1 45,2 38,7 35,5 19,4

L'Alguer 83,9 96,8 83,9 25,8 48,4 22,6 51,6 45,2 35,5 51,6 19,4

València 77,4 58,1 100 41,9 61,3 25,8 45,2 29 48,4 48,4 9,7

Palència 51,6 32,3 38,7 100 51,6 32,3 51,6 51,6 64,5 38,7 16,1

Granada 41,9 48,4 77,4 48,4 100 61,3 41,9 74,2 58,1 32,3 16,1

LaLaguna 32,3 32,3 41,9 48,4 54,8 100 54,8 51,6 48,4 35,5 12,9

Gradisca 51,6 38,7 51,6 48,4 38,7 51,6 96,8 87,1 51,6 38,7 12,9

Beivars 58,1 41,9 58,1 41,9 58,1 38,7 67,6 96,8 38,7 48,4 6,5

Siena 35,5 22,6 67,6 64,5 51,6 38,7 48,4 32,3 100 51,6 9,7

PortuTurre 58,1 38,7 48,4 32,3 29 32,3 45,2 35,5 58,1 100 22,6

Biddanoa 19,4 22,6 0 16,1 9,7 16,1 29 16,1 12,9 35,5 100

Results interrogatives

Descriptive stadistics

Multidimensional scaling

Cluster analysis: euclideic distance

Groups out of previous group.

BCN L'Alguer València Palència Granada LaLaguna Gradisca Beivars Siena Portu Turre Biddanoa

BCN 96,8 64,5 96,8 54,8 61,3 25,8 29 67,7 54,8 25,8 6,5

L'Alguer 51,6 96,8 67,7 35,5 41,9 22,6 32,3 45,2 32,4 16,1 19,4

València 93,5 61,3 100 32,3 48,4 22,6 51,6 77,4 45,2 29 6,5

Palència 54,8 45,2 41,9 100 45,2 48,4 32,3 54,8 35,5 19,4 12,9

Granada 90,3 45,2 71 64,5 100 35,3 45,2 71 48,4 22,6 12,9

LaLaguna 45,2 41,9 32,3 48,4 41,9 96,8 25,8 25,8 29 22,6 9,7

Gradisca 45,2 54,8 71 41,9 45,2 38,7 100 87,1 35,5 48,4 19,4

Beivars 67,7 45,2 67,7 38,7 71 32,3 74,2 96,8 45,2 35,5 19,4

Siena 61,3 45,2 51,6 58,1 51,6 25,8 32,3 48,4 100 41,9 12,9

PortuTurre 25,8 54,8 45,2 35,5 22,6 12,9 38,7 45,2 35,5 100 25,8

Biddanoa 12,9 25,8 12,9 12,9 3,2 3,2 19,4 9,7 9,7 29 93,5

Declaratives

Interrogatives

Conclusions

• Identification of modality

– cues to identify modality in both general and specific

patterns of their language.

– In patterns that are not alike but have a resemblance

• They find that a stimulus can be of a same

dialect attending to:

– its belonging or not to their mother tongue

– acoustic intonational resemblances

Gràcies!

References

•Gussenhoven, C., & Chen, A. (2000). Universal and language-specific effects in the

perception of question intonation. In Proceedings of the 6th ICSLP (pp. 91-94).

•Fernández Planas, A.M.; Roseano, P.; Dorta, J. i Martínez Celdrán, E. (forthcoming):

«¿Continuidad prosódica en diferentes puntos de la Romania? El caso de algunas

interrogativas», dins Actes del 26è Congrés Internacional de Lingüística i Filologia

Romàniques, València.

•Fernández Planas, A.M.; Roseano, P.; Martínez Celdrán, E. i Romera, L.

(2011):«Aproximación al análisis dialectométrico de la entonación en algunos puntos del

dominio lingüístico catalán», Estudios de Fonética Experimental, Vol. XX, pp. 141-178.

•Mehler, J; Jusczyk, P W.; Lambertz, G.; Hasltead, N; Bertoncini J; Amied-Tison, C.

(1988) A precursor of language acquisition in young infants. Cognition, 29, 143-178.

•Romera, Magdalena, and Gorka Elordieta. "Prosodic accommodation in language

contact: Spanish intonation in Majorca." International Journal of the Sociology of

Language 2013.221 (2013): 127-151.

•Vicenik, Chad, and Megha Sundara. "The role of intonation in language and dialect

discrimination by adults." Journal of Phonetics 41.5 (2013): 297-306.

Acknowledgements

• This project is feasible thanks to FFI2009-

09309/FILO and FFI2012-35998.

• The Laboratory of Phonetics (UB) research

group

• To the speakers

• To the listeners