The analysis

Our analysis focuses on the intonation melody and only concerns boundaries that have tonal implications. Only the boundaries of the intonation phrase are therefore transcribed.

Our analysis differs from two earlier systems for the transcription of Dutch Intonation:

  • The IPO grammar of intonation (Collier and 't Hart 1981, 't Hart, Collier and Cohen 1990), which is based on pitch movements. Instead, like ToBI, ToDI is based on pitch targets or tones.
  • The tone-based analysis of Gussenhoven (1988, 1991). ToDI is a less abstract version of that analysis and as a result is easier to apply. It is close to its computer implementation (Gussenhoven & Rietveld 1992), which also formed the inspiration for the synthesis-by-rule program included in the second edition.

This course assumes no familiarity with any of these systems. Its primary aim is to help you become proficient in intonation transcription in a relatively short amount of time.

However, this is not a course in phonetics. It is assumed that you have some background in phonetics and phonology, and are familiar with speech analysis tools used in phonetic research.

The resynthesis rules for the generation of the F0 contour were especially developed for this course by Joop Kerkhoff. The speech files were produced with the PSOLA-resynthesis option in the Praat program (Praat: doing phonetics by computer; Paul Boersma & David Weenink).

New in the second edition:

  • The exercises feature a keyboard-like console with dedicated buttons for each pitch accent and each boundary tone.
  • A synthesis facility which allows the user to synthesize every transcribable contour for every utterance in the exercises.
  • Improved section on appended constructions.
  • The symbol H*+L to describe a steep fall before a gradual rise has been replaced with H*LH (section 1.8).

Literature

M.E. Beckman and G.M. Ayers (1994). Guidelines for ToBI transcription. Version 2.0. Ms

R. Collier and J. 't Hart (1981). Cursus Nederlandse Intonatie. Leuven: Acco.

T. Dutoit, V. Pagel, N. Pierret, F. Bataille, O. van der Vreken (1996), "The MBROLA Project: Towards a Set of High-Quality Speech Synthesizers Free of Use for Non-Commercial Purposes" Proc. ICSLP'96, Philadelphia, vol. 3, pp. 1393-1396 .

C. Gussenhoven (1988). Adequacy in intonation analysis: The case of Dutch. In H. van der Hulst & N. Smith (eds.) Autosegmental Studies on Pitch Accent. Dordrecht: Foris.

C. Gussenhoven (1991). Tone segments in the intonation of Dutch. In Thomas F. Shannon & Johan P. Snapper (eds.) The Berkeley Conference on Dutch Linguistics 1989. Lanham (MD): University Press of America.

C. Gussenhoven (forthcoming) Transcription of Dutch Intonation. In Sun-Ah Jun (ed.) Prosodic Typology and Transcription: A Unified Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

C. Gussenhoven & T. Rietveld (1992). A target-interpolation model for the intonation of Dutch. In Proceedings ICSPL 92. 1235-1238.

J. 't Hart, R. Collier and A. Cohen (1990). A perceptual study of intonation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Taalportaal: the linguistics of Dutch, Frisian and Afrikaans online. Dutch - Phonology - Accent and intonation - Intonation