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Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German

This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in c...

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Autores principales: Kügler, Frank, Gollrad, Anja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557098/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26388795
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01254
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author Kügler, Frank
Gollrad, Anja
author_facet Kügler, Frank
Gollrad, Anja
author_sort Kügler, Frank
collection PubMed
description This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts. The majority of cases realized showed a nuclear rise-fall contour. The acoustic analysis of these contours revealed a significant effect of contrastiveness on the height/alignment of the accent peak as a function of focus context. On the other hand, the height/alignment of the low turning point at the beginning of the rise did not show an effect of contrastiveness. In a series of semantic congruency perception tests participants judged the congruency of congruent and incongruent context-stimulus pairs based on three different sets of stimuli: (i) original data, (ii) manipulation of accent peak, and (iii) manipulation of the leading low. Listeners distinguished nuclear rise-fall contours as a function of focus context (Experiment 1 and 2), however not based on manipulations of the leading low (Experiment 3). The results suggest that the alignment and scaling of the accentual peak are sufficient to license a contrastive interpretation of a nuclear rise-fall contour, leaving the rising part as a phonetic onglide, or as a low tone that does not interact with the contrastivity of the context.
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spelling pubmed-45570982015-09-18 Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German Kügler, Frank Gollrad, Anja Front Psychol Psychology This study investigates the phonetics of German nuclear rise-fall contours in relation to contexts that trigger either a contrastive or a non-contrastive interpretation in the answer. A rise-fall contour can be conceived of a tonal sequence of L-H-L. A production study elicited target sentences in contrastive and non-contrastive contexts. The majority of cases realized showed a nuclear rise-fall contour. The acoustic analysis of these contours revealed a significant effect of contrastiveness on the height/alignment of the accent peak as a function of focus context. On the other hand, the height/alignment of the low turning point at the beginning of the rise did not show an effect of contrastiveness. In a series of semantic congruency perception tests participants judged the congruency of congruent and incongruent context-stimulus pairs based on three different sets of stimuli: (i) original data, (ii) manipulation of accent peak, and (iii) manipulation of the leading low. Listeners distinguished nuclear rise-fall contours as a function of focus context (Experiment 1 and 2), however not based on manipulations of the leading low (Experiment 3). The results suggest that the alignment and scaling of the accentual peak are sufficient to license a contrastive interpretation of a nuclear rise-fall contour, leaving the rising part as a phonetic onglide, or as a low tone that does not interact with the contrastivity of the context. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4557098/ /pubmed/26388795 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01254 Text en Copyright © 2015 Kügler and Gollrad. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Kügler, Frank
Gollrad, Anja
Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title_full Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title_fullStr Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title_full_unstemmed Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title_short Production and perception of contrast: The case of the rise-fall contour in German
title_sort production and perception of contrast: the case of the rise-fall contour in german
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557098/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26388795
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01254
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