A Phonetic Model of English Intonation

Paul A. Taylor

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Phonetics and Phonology Research Speech Recognition and Synthesis Linguistic Studies and Language Acquisition

Abstract

This thesis proposes a phonetic model of English intonation which is a system for linking the phonological and F₀, descriptions of an utterance. It is argued that such a model should take the form of a rigorously defined formal system which does not require any human intuition or expertise to operate. It is also argued that this model should be capable of both analysis (F₀ to phonology) and synthesis (phonology to F₀). Existing phonetic models are reviewed and it is shown that none meet the specification for the type of formal model required. A new phonetic model is presented that has three levels of description: the F₀ level, the intermediate level and the phonological level. The intermediate level uses the three basic elements of rise,fall and connection to model F₀ contours. A mathematical equation is specified for each of these elements so that a continuous lb contour can be created from a sequence of elements. The phonological system uses H and L to describe high and low pitch accents, C to describe connection elements and B to describe the rises that occur at phrase boundaries. A fully specified grammar is described which links the intermediate and F₀ levels. A grammar is specified for linking the phonological and intermediate levels, but this is only partly complete due to problems with the phonological level of description. A computer implementation of the model is described. Most of the implementation work concentrated on the relationship between the intermediate level and the F₀ level. Results are given showing that the computer analysis system labels F₀ contours quite accurately, but is significantly worse than a human labeller. It is shown that the synthesis system produces artificial F₀ contours that are very similar to naturally occurring F₀ contours The thesis concludes with some indications of further work and ideas on how the computer implementation of the model could be of practical benefit in speech synthesis and recognition.

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References

1964ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF SYNTAX 1968The Sound Pattern of English 1984Phonology and Syntax: The Relation between Sound and Structure 1987The phonology and phonetics of English intonation 1986Intonational structure in Japanese and English 2019Elements of General Phonetics 1947The intonation of American English. By Kenneth L. Pike. (University of Michigan Publications: Linguistics, Vol. 1.) Pp. xi + 200, lithoprinted. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1946.1953Preliminaries to speech analysis: The distinctive features and their correlates. By Roman Jakobson, C. Gunnar M. Fant, and Morris Halle. (Technical report No. 13, 2d printing with additions and corrections.) Pp. viii, 58. [Cambridge, Mass.]: Acoustics Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1952.

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