Perceptual Organization in
Intonational Phonology:
A Test of Parallelism
J. Devin McAuley1 & Laura C. Dilley2
Department of Psychology
Bowling Green State University1
The Ohio State University2
10th Conference on Laboratory Phonology, Paris
July 1, 2006
Patterns in prosodic systems

Patterns are widespread in prosodic systems


Example: Repetition in accentual sequences
Why does accentual repetition occur?
Ladd (1986):
I wanted to read it to Julia.
H
L

HL
Other kinds of patterning have been central to
phonological theory


H
L
Correspondence Theory (McCarthy & Prince 1995): Patterning arises
from Universal Grammar
Proposal: Perception provides the basis for patterning in
prosodic systems
Prosodic patterns
In pitch:
“…nothing like the full set [of accents] generated by the
grammar has ever been documented. For three accent
phrases, the typical pattern is either to use the same accent
type in all three positions, or else to use one type of accent in
both prenuclear positions, and a different type in nuclear
position.” (Pierrehumbert 2000: 27)
In time? cf. perceptual isochrony (Lehiste 1977)
Why are accentual sequences repeated?
What mechanisms underlie perceptual
isochrony?
Perceptual organization

Repeating patterns in pitch and time lead to:
Perception of structure: grouping and meter
 Generation of expectations

Pitch:
H L H L H L …  (H* L) (H* L) (H* L) …
H (L* H) (L* H) (L* …)
Time:
…  (
*
)(
*
)(
*
)…
(Woodrow 1911, Povel and Essens 1985, Handel 1989)
Parallelism Principle
“When two or more stretches of speech can be
construed as parallel, they preferably form parallel
parts of groups with parallel metrical structure.”
(cf. Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983)

Parallelism depends on regularity in pitch or in time
)L)( )(H*
( L)) (H*
H ( (L*
H)
…)
) ((L*
( )(L*
(H)
(H*
(H*
L)
)…
H L H L H L ……(H*)
(L*
H
L)
L)
……
…

*
*
*
*
Parallelism aids in communication
*
*
Creates metrical structure
 Causes expectations to be generated, drawing attention
to important parts of utterances

Stimuli and Task

20 target sequences consisted of two disyllabic trochaic
words (e.g., worthy vinyl) followed by a final four
syllable string that could be organized into words in
more than one way (e.g., lifelong handshake versus
life longhand shake).

80 filler sequences consisted of 6 – 10 syllables; an
equal number ended with a disyllabic or monosyllabic
final word.

Task: Participants listened to target and filler sequences
and reported the final word they heard in each
sequence.
Condition I: “Pitch”
F0 alternated between H and L
HL expectancy:

worthy vinyl life
H
L
H L
HL
long hand shake
H
L
“shake”
H
LH expectancy:
worthy vinyl life
long hand shake
L
H
H
L H
L
L
H
“handshake”
Condition II: “Duration”

F0 was flat; interval between syllables 5, 6 varied
weak-strong expectancy:
long hand shake
worthy vinyl life
S
W
S W
S
(W)
S
W
“shake”
S
lengthened
strong-weak expectancy:
worthy vinyl life
long hand shake
S
W
W
S W
S
shortened
S
W
“handshake”
Condition III: “Pitch + Duration”

F0 alternated between H and L; interval between
syllables 5, 6 varied
HL + weak-strong expectancy:
worthy vinyl life
long hand shake
H
S
H
S
L
W
H L
S W
H L
S
(W)
L
W
“shake”
H
S
lengthened
LH + strong-weak expectancy:
worthy vinyl life
L
S
H
W
L H
S W
L
S
long hand shake
H
L
H
W
S
W
shortened
“handshake”
Participants

One-hundred thirty-eight native speakers of
American English attending Ohio State
University.

Assigned to one of the three prosodic context
conditions.
Pitch (n = 57)
 Duration (n = 40)
 Pitch + Duration (n = 41)

Procedure

Practice


Participants listened to six filler sequences and wrote
down the final word they heard.
Test

Participants listened to 100 sequences (20 targets /
80 fillers) and wrote down the final word they heard.
10 targets paired with a disyllabic context
 10 targets paired with a monosyllabic context


Target sequence / context pairing counterbalanced
across participants.
Predictions


‘HL’, ‘weak-strong’, and ‘HL + weak-strong’
expectations (“monosyllabic contexts”) should
produce monosyllabic final word reports:
e.g., worthy vinyl life longhand shake
‘LH’, ‘strong-weak’, and ‘LH + strong-weak’
expectations (“disyllabic contexts”) should
produce disyllabic final word reports:
e.g., worthy vinyl lifelong handshake
Results
1.0
0.8
Context
Disyllabic
0.7
Monosyllabic
P(Disyllabic Response)
0.9
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Duration
Pitch
Condition
Pitch+Duration
Perceptual sensitivity analysis

Could subjects simply be reporting more disyllabic words
across the board?
How much prosodic context affects word reports vs.
Bias for reporting disyllables vs. monosyllables
d' = z(Hits) – z(False Alarms)



Hit = Reporting a disyllabic word in a disyllabic context
False Alarm = Reporting a disyllabic word in a monosyllabic
context
Low d' (≈0) if Hits≈False Alarms; Higher d' (> 0 –
4.0) indicates that disyllabic words are more often
reported only in disyllabic contexts
Results
2
Perceptual Sensitivity (d')
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Duration
Duration-alone
Pitch
Pitch-alone
Disyllabic Context
Pitch+Duration
Pitch+Duration
Results
1
0.8
0.6
Criterion (c)
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
Duration-alone
Duration
Pitch-alone
Pitch
Di-Syllabic Context
Pitch+Duration
Pitch+Duration
Summary

Regularity in pitch and time affected perceived
syllable grouping into words
More disyllabic responses when prior context
favored a disyllabic grouping
 Both pitch and duration were effective cues to
structure; combined cues were most effective



Supports the relevance of auditory perception
to prosodic phenomena
Supports the Parallelism Principle

Prosodic regularity is not simply due to “Universal
Grammar”
Mechanisms underlying Parallelism

Listeners generate expectations about upcoming
auditory events which affect attention (Jones 1976,
McAuley and Jones 2003)
Confirming expectation  Habituation (“Nothing
new…”)
 Violating expectation  Heightened attention
(“Here’s something new!”)


Parallelism Principle describes a special case of
these general processes

Patterns lead to maximal violation of expectation and
maximally heightened attention at location of a
change
Intonational phonology: Implications

Why do accents tend to repeat?


Observation: Narrow focus and/or nuclear
position leads to a different accent. Why?


Repeating sequences have special status in effectively
creating perceptual structure (Parallelism)
Change draws attention to important locations
What factors limit possible accentual sequences?

Fixed inventory of single-toned and bitonal accents
(Pierrehumbert 1980)

Language-universal principles (cf. Parallelism) +
language-specific restrictions (Dilley 2005)
Language acquisition



Studies of segmentation have focused primarily on local
cues to stress and word boundaries
An experiment showed that listeners “carry forward”
expectations based on perceived parallel structure
Infants may use global prosodic structure to develop
candidate word segmentations


Parallelism provides initial “hook” into prosodic structure
Parallelism likely supplements acoustic cues to stress, which
are variable, plus phoneme sequence probabilities
Conclusions

A Parallelism principle was proposed to explain
prosodic patterning




Experimental evidence supported this principle
Parallelism is a special case of general processes
involving generation of expectations and
allocation of attention
These processes help to explain repetition and
change in accentual sequences
Parallelism may play a role in language acquisition
References
Handel, S. (1989) Listening: An introduction to the perception of auditory events. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Ladd, D. R. (1986) Intonational phrasing: the case for recursive prosodic structure.
Phonology Yearbook 3, 311-340
Lehiste, I. (1977) Isochrony revisited. Journal of Phonetics 5, 253-263.
Lerdahl, F. and Jackendoff, R. (1983) A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. MIT Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Jones, M. R. (1976). Time, our lost dimension: Toward a new theory of perception,
attention, and memory. Psychological Review, 83, 323-355.
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duration: A comparison of interval and entrainment approaches to short-interval
timing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 29, 11021125.
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