Transcribing Prosodic Structure of Spoken Utterances with ToBI

Exercise 2.2

Exercises: 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.3 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.6 | 2.7 | 2.8 | 2.9

Section 2.2 L* H-H% (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 9 .textgrid, 6 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

1. Just listen and focus on the prosody. The following file has various speakers producing various texts, all with a single L* pitch accent and the H-H% phrase accent-boundary tone combination. (ex2a1various.wav) (for Abernathy, me, tarnation, a minimum, really, and are you recording)

B: Labelling Exercises

Label the following files, using the TextGrids provided. (For each file, you should find TextGrid with the words tier filled.) Files may contain Intonational Phrases with H* L-L% as well as L* H-H%, but each individual phrase will still have only a single pitch accent.

1. ex2a1marianna.wav (Marianna)
2. ex2a2amelia.wav (Amelia knew him)
3. ex2a3vegs: an utterance with several Intonational Phrases, spoken by the same speaker (some beans, some arugula, a rutabaga, an onion)
4. ex2a4various: several short utterances by the same speaker strung together (banana another banana arugula marmalade marmalade a ToBI labeller)

C: Further Exercises

1. Produce, record and compare L* H-H% from L* H-H% models. The file ex2c1_luminary.wav has examples of 2 different speakers saying the words a luminary with L* H-H%. Record your own rendition(s) and save your files. (use ex3c1, and your initials: ex3c1 _amb.wav)

2. Produce both H* L-L% and L* H-H% on the same set of words. Try the following list (and feel free to add to it): me, you, banana, another banana, a lime, arugula, watermelon, an umbrella, marmalade, a minimum, a ToBI labeller

3. Work with a partner to produce “dialogs”: H* L-L% in response to L* H-H%, and vice versa. You can use words from the list above, or choose your own.

   • eg:
     speaker 1: a banana? (L* H-H%)
     speaker 2: a banana. (H* L-L%)
     or
     speaker 1: some marmalade. (H* L-L%)
     speaker 2: some marmalade? (L* H-H%)
     or
     speaker 1: a rutabaga? (L* H-H%)
     speaker 2: no. (H* L-L%)

4. Try producing L* H-H% versions on a longer phrase or two. In section 2.1, you heard the H* L-L% contour on several longer phrases. (You may also have tried your own H* L-L% renditions on the same text in exercise C3 of section 2.1). For this exercise, try to produce the same text as in the files below, but with the L* H-H% contour.

   “He said you would.” (said-would1.wav) (L* on “said”)
   “Marianna won it.” (won-a.wav) (L* on “Marianna”)
   “He was nominated.” (nominated-Hstar.wav) (L* on “nominated”)

   • save your soundfiles as .wav files, and any associated TextGrids, named with “ex2c4” and your initials, and a number or keyword if you produce more than one sound file (eg. ex2c4amb2.wav or ex2c4amb_won.wav).