6.911 | January IAP 2006 | Undergraduate

Transcribing Prosodic Structure of Spoken Utterances with ToBI

Exercises

ToBI Tutorial Exercises

There are exercises for sections 2.1 through 2.9 of this ToBI tutorial. Each set of exercises consists of a document with an explanation of the exercises, and a number of associated soundfiles and TextGrids. It is important that you read the exercise explanations for each section, as the various files have been prepared for different purposes: some are meant for labelling, and others are just for listening.

There are 3 types of exercises:

Type A: listening. Usually these files consist of several productions of the same contour, or contrasting contours.

Type B: labelling. These wav files will generally have pre-made TextGrids with the words tier filled, and in some cases, some partial labels. Labelling files will also have an associated TextGrid file with “-ans” as part of the filename with answers.

Type C: other. These are usually production exercises. They are most effective if you can record yourself on your computer, and examine the results in Praat (or another sound application).

You may find it helpful to use a script in Praat that allows you to open multiple files at the same time. One such script is available at Mietta’s Praat scripts, where a Praat user has made Praat scripts that she’s written available to the public.

The following script allows you to open all Praat-readable files in a directory.

EXERCISES TOPICS
Exercise 2.1 Praat & H* L-L%
Exercise 2.2 L* H-H%
Exercise 2.3 More than One Pitch Accent in a Phrase
Exercise 2.4 Other Phrase Accent-boundary Tone Combinations
Exercise 2.5 L+H* and L*+H
Exercise 2.6 !H*
Exercise 2.7 Bi-tonals with a !H Element
Exercise 2.8 3 Breaks, and The L- and H- Phrase Accents
Exercise 2.9 The Downstepped High Phrase Accent (!H-)

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

ToBI Tutorial Section 2.1 Exercises: Praat & H* L-L% (ZIP - 1.4 MB) (The ZIP file contains: 10 .textgrid, 10 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

  1. Just listen. This file (ex1a1.wav) has various speakers producing various texts, all with a single H* pitch accent, and a L-L% phrase accent-boundary tone combination. Listen to the file several times, and focus on the prosody. (ex1a1.wav: hey, aware, some beans, calcium, repo man, without a three, gray)
  2. Listen and choose. 5 of the 7 versions of a minimum are produced with H* L-L%, and 2 are produced with different contours. Can you pick which? (ex1a2.wav has the choices with letters to keep track, ex1a2-unlettered.wav has the same choices in the same order, but without the intervening letters.)

B. Labelling Exercises

The exercises in this section all contain a single Intonational Phrase, with a single H* pitch accent and the L-L% phrase accent-boundary tone combination.

For Each File

  • Label the words, break indices, the phrase tone-boundary tone combination and pitch accent on the appropriate syllable for each Intonational Phrase.

Issues to Consider while Labelling: Alignment of Labels

  • Break indices aligned to end of word
  • Phrase accent and boundary tone aligned to end of last word of phrase
  • Pitch accent in correct syllable, at correct location. The best place (in most cases) is the highest intensity and the “fattest” (in the waveform) part of vowel. If there isn’t an obvious single “fat” point, the approximate center of the vowel will suffice.

For the following files, use the TextGrid provided, which has the words included on the words tier.

  • ex1b1lemon (lemon)
  • ex1b2lime (a lime)
  • ex1b3another_banana (another banana)

For the following files, you will need to make your own TextGrid. (Refer to the Short Praat User’s guide for help.)

  • create a blank TextGrid in Praat with the following tiers: tones, words, breaks, misc. (Make sure that words tier is an interval tier, and that the other three are point tiers.)
    Labelled TextGrids can be found in the folder called “keys.”
    • ex1b4me (me)
    • ex1b5umbrella (umbrella)
    • ex1b6nominated (he was nominated)
  • Save all your TextGrid files-include your initials in the filename (eg. ex1b3amb.TextGrid)

C: Further Exercises

Produce and record your own H* L-L% phrases

  1. Listen to the file ex1c1minimum.wav, which contains the words a minimum produced by different speakers with H* L-L%
    • record (in Praat or another recording application) and imitate the intonation contour on the same words (a minimum) in your own voice. Try several different pitch ranges, speeds or volumes: in your “normal” range, in a higher- or lower-pitched voice, softly, loudly, slowly, quickly.
    • Look, listen and compare. Do your versions look like the H* L-L% contour? If not, think (descriptively) about how your versions differ. (Note: It is often tricky to produce a given contour on demand: we’re used to using prosody communicatively, and without conscious planning. Don’t worry if you’ve produced something that sounds different: you can always save your files to label later on, once you’ve learned more the of the ToBI inventory.)
    • You may want to create a TextGrid to label those versions you believe are H* L-L%. Don’t worry about labelling others.
  2. Try producing several H* L-L% versions on the following words and short phrases (feel free to add to the list):
    me, you, banana, another banana, a lime, arugula, watermelon, an umbrella, marmalade
  3. Try producing H* L-L% versions on a longer phrase or two. Listen to files from section 2.1, and try your own renditions on the same text:
    He said you would. (said-would1.wav)
    Marianna won it. (won-a.wav)
    He was nominated. (nominated-Hstar.wav)
    • You may want to save your soundfiles as .wav files, and any associated TextGrids, named with “ex1c2” and your initials, and a number or keyword if you produce more than one sound file (eg. ex1c3amb2.wav and ex1c3amb2.TextGrid or ex1c3amb_won.wav and ex1c3amb_won.TextGrid)

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).

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

2.3 More than One Pitch Accent in a Phrase (ZIP - 1.2 MB) (The ZIP file contains: 10 .textgrid, 9 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

The following files all contain Intonational Phrases with 2 pitch accents, produced on various texts, by various speakers:

  1. H* H* L-L% (ex3a1) (all familiar, another banana, I see you)
  2. L* L* H-H% (ex3a2) (was it only Amelia, is that true, in here)
  3. L* H* L-L% (ex3a3) (Ray will leave, a bottle of water, like a banana)
  4. H* L* H-H% (ex3a4) (I was wrong, was it some arugula, I don’t like marmalade)

B: Labelling Exercises

The following files may contain

  1. Intonational Phrases with either one or more pitch accents and/or
  2. More than one Intonational Phrase. (Label them using the inventory we’ve seen so far: H*, L*, H-H% and L-L% tones and 0, 1 or 4 breaks.)
    1. ex3b1banana (another banana)
    2. ex3b2banana (another banana)
    3. ex3b3onion (was it an onion)
    4. ex3b4shoe (if the shoe fits wear it)
    5. ex3b5watermelon (a watermelon)

C: Further Exercises

Make your own recording: Try to produce the same text with varying number and placement of pitch accents. For example, try saying the words another banana in a single Intonational Phrase

  • with a pitch accent on another,
  • with a pitch accent on banana, and
  • with 2 pitch accents, one on each of the two words. Try varying your pitch accent types between H* and L*, as well as your phrase accent-boundary tone combinations.

Here are some combinations you might want to try:

H* L-L% vs. H* H* L-L% and L* H* L-L% or, L* H-H% vs L* L* H-H% or H* L* H-H%

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

Section 2.4 Exercises: Other Phrase Accent-boundary Tone Combinations (ZIP - 2.2 MB) (The ZIP file contains: 30 .textgrid, 14 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

The following files all contain Intonational Phrases with an H* or L* pitch accent, followed by L-H% or H-L% that have been produced on various texts, by various speakers:

  1. H* L-H% (ex4a1HstarLH) (banana but anyway marinade)
  2. L* L-H% (ex4a2LstarLH) (a rutabaga small another banana Amelia knew him) (note: another banana likely contains 2 L* pitch accents, but still ends in L-H%)
  3. H* H-L% (ex4a3HstarHL) (low marinade a honeydew) (note: a honeydew is a full IP, but has been snipped from a longer utterance, so will appear clipped in the waveform and spectrogram)
  4. L* H-L% (ex4a4LstarHL) (to the airport a rutabaga she knew Abercrombie)

B: Labelling Exercises

Easier Version

For each of the following files, label the phrase accent and boundary tones. (Pitch accents and break indices have been filled in on the TextGrids with “-part” in the filename-eg exb1joey-part.TextGrid.)

  1. ex4b1joey (don’t hit it to Joey)
  2. ex4b2amelia (Amelia knew him)
  3. ex4b3mangos (bananas and mangos)
  4. ex4b4peculiar (this is peculiar)
  5. ex4b5fruit (a lime, a honeydew, a watermelon, a lemon)
  6. ex4b6fruit (a lime, a lemon, a watermelon, a honeydew)
  7. ex4b7amelia (Amelia knew him)
  8. ex4b8rowling (J. K. Rowling)
  9. ex4b9hold (could you hold this for a second)
  10. ex4b10lying (I knew he was lying)

More Labor-intensive Option

Label the above files, using the TextGrids provided. (For each wav file, you should find a TextGrid file with only the words tier filled, which contains “-words” in the filename.) These files contain either single Intonational Phrases, or more than one, and phrases may have more than one pitch accent. (Any label listed in the inventory at the end section 2-4, as listed in “Introduced so far.”)

Note: These exercises are paired by speaker (The same speaker produced 1 and 2, a different speaker 3 and 4, etc.) You need not do these in order, but it may be helpful to label both examples of the same speaker for comparison. If you are short on time, pick only 2 pairs to label.

C: Further Exercises

  • “List intonation.” There are a variety of ways that speaker of Mainstream American English produce intonation on a list of items. This section includes several final pitch accent, phrase accent and boundary tone combinations that appear commonly in a spoken list. Read and record the following lists of items (which contain words of varying length, and vary the main-stressed syllable):
    • A Fruit List: a lime, a lemon, a honeydew, a watermelon.
    • A Vegetable List: some beans, an onion, some arugula, a rutabaga
    • A Name List: Anne, Lenny, Melanie, Abernathy

Hints: It may help to produce the lists in response to a context question, such as “what did you buy at the farmer’s market,” or “who was at the party?” It may also feel more natural to add the word “and” before the last item.

Try producing the lists with the items in different orders, too. Feel free to come up with your own lists.

When you look at your soundfiles, see if you produced the lists in a way that you can label with the inventory we’ve looked at so far.

save your soundfiles as .wav files, and any associated TextGrids, named with “ex4c1” and your initials, and a number or keyword if you produce more than one sound file (eg. ex4c1amb2.wav or ex2c1amb_names.wav).

  • “Question intonation.” Speakers of Mainstream American English also use a variety of intonation patterns when producing questions. Try to produce (and record) the same short question with a variety of intonational contours. Start by reading the question(s) aloud without thinking about your prosody, then see if you can vary your prosody.
    • Questions you might Ask: Was it Amelia? Did you buy watermelon? Are you going? Can you draw a parabola?

Look at your recordings. Can you identify the phrase accent and boundary tone combination that you used in each case? Did you produce the pattern you expected?

Save your soundfiles as .wav files, and any associated TextGrids, named with “ex2c” and your initials, and a number or keyword if you produce more than one sound file (eg. ex2c2amb2.wav or ex2c2amb_going.wav).

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

Section 2.5 Exercises: L+H* and L*+H (ZIP - 1.8 MB) (The ZIP file contains: 10 .textgrid, 6 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

L*+H vs. L+H*

  1. ex5a1millionaire: this file contains 2 versions of the same text (only a millionaire), produced by the same speaker, that differ by the pitch accent on the word millionaire. Listen to them (before you look) and try to identify which has L+H* and which has L*+H.
  2. ex5a2proenglish: this file contains 2 versions of the same text (Eileen’s pro-English), produced by 2 different speakers, that differ by the pitch accent on the word Eileen. Listen to them (before you look) and try to identify which has L+H* and which has L*+H.

B: Labelling Exercises

Label the following files, using the TextGrids provided. (For each file, you should find TextGrid with the words tier filled.) These files each contain multiple Intonational Phrases. Phrases may have more than one pitch accent. (Use any label listed in the inventory at the end section 2-5, as listed in “Introduced so far.” However, these files concentrate on the L+H* vs H* distinction, so expect to find many of those. A note about the answer keys: The prosody of an utterance is sometimes ambiguous, and different labellers may disagree on the preferred labels to capture the f0 pattern and other aspects of the acoustic signal. Because of this, some of the Intonational Phrases show more than one possible set of tone or break labels. In each case, the labels on the higher tier reflect the “preferred” answer, and those on the lower tier reflect a second reasonable parse.)

  1. ex5b1bananas (a banana another banana a banana another banana another little banana-twice another greenish banana)
  2. ex5b2amelias (3 versions of Amelia knew him)
  3. ex5b3veg1 (some beans-twice, some arugula-3 times)
  4. ex5b4veg2 (an onion-twice, no an onion, no a rutabaga, a rutabaga-twice)

C: Further Exercises: Context, Contrast and Variation

  • Read (and record) the following words and short phrases in sequence:
    • a melody
      another melody
      another little melody
      beautiful
      a beautiful melody
      a strangely beautiful melody
      another strange melody
      an unusual melody

Next, read the same words and phrases in a different order, such as the one below:

  • beautiful
    a strangely beautiful melody
    another melody
    another little melody
    a melody
    another strange melody
    an unusual melody
    a beautiful melody

Look at (and try to label if you’re feeling adventurous) each of the pairs of short phrases (from the first order compared to the second order). Did you produce them with the same intonation both times? Think about what might lead to the variation, if you see it.

For a further look at your own variation or consistency, go back at a later time and read the same 2 sequences and see if you produce them the same way you did the first time.

  • Produce (and record) the same text in response to a variety of context questions and statements. This works best with a partner to produce the contexts. Use any or all of the contexts below-feel free to add your own. (Tired of Marianna and her marmalade? Make up your own contexts and response.) Note: try not to just read the sentence, but to produce it as a response. As a point of comparison first produce the sentence as you would read it without any particular background or context: Marianna made the marmalade.

    • A: Who made the marmalade?
      B: Marianna made the marmalade

      A: What did Marianna make?
      B: Marianna made the marmalade.

      A: The marmalade Marianna bought is fabulous.
      B: Marianna made the marmalade.

      A: Bob made some great marmalade.
      B: Marianna made the marmalade.

      A. Who made what?
      B: Marianna made the marmalade, Bob made the jelly, and Amelia
      made the jam.

      A: Marianna always makes either marmalade or salsa. What did
      she make this time?
      B: Marianna made the marmalade.

      A: Marianna made some great marmalade.
      B: Marianna made the marmalade? I thought she was allergic
      to citrus fruits.

Compare your various renditions (and label as many of them as you can). How did they vary by context? Did you find, for example, that some contexts led you to produce L+H* vs H*? Did some contexts result in more pitch accents in the sentence? Did you see different boundary tones?

  • save your soundfiles as .wav files, and any associated TextGrids, named with “ex5c”, the exercise number, your initials, and a number or keyword if you produce more than one sound file (eg. ex5c2amb2.wav or ex5c2amb_allergic.wav).

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

Section 2.6 Exercises: !H* (ZIP - 1.0 MB) (The ZIP file contains: 14 .textgrid, 8 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

Look, listen and compare. The following files contain contrasting patterns with !H*.

  • ex6a1anna contrasts words with a downstepped pitch accent vs. deaccented words: 2 versions of Anna married Lenny
    • H* L-L% vs,
    • H* !H* !H* L-L%
  • ex6a2cigar contrasts H* vs !H*: 2 versions of close but no cigar where the text no cigar is produced with
    • H* H* L-L% and,
    • H* !H* L-L% (the file also repeats just the contrasting but no cigar portion at the end)

B. Labelling Exercises

Label the following files, using the TextGrids provided. (For each file, you should find TextGrid with the words tier filled.) These files each contain one or more Intonational Phrases, and phrases may have more than one pitch accent. (Use any label listed in the inventory at the end section 2-6, as listed in “Introduced so far.”)

  1. ex6b1station (okay to get from home to the station)
  2. ex6b2familiar (all familiar)
  3. ex6b3thanks (but thanks for thinking of me)
  4. ex6b4hand (hand me another banana)
  5. ex6b5game (there’s another game that we used to play)
  6. ex6b6here (in here)

C. Further Exercises

Produce and record your own !H* examples.

  1. Try the following text and tone sequences. How many sequential !H* pitch accents can you produce? (Add more words if you can keep going…)
    • A banana. H* L-L%
    • Another banana. H* !H* L-L%
    • Another yellow banana. H* !H* !H* L-L%
    • Another little yellow banana . H* !H* !H* !H* L-L%
  2. Pick any file(s) from section 2.6, or a favorite from the listening/labelling exercises above, and reproduce in your own voice. Record and save.

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

Section 2.7 Exercises: Bitonals with a !H Element (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 8 .wav files, 12 .textgrid, and 1 .pdf files.)

A. Listening Exercises

Just listen and focus on the prosody.

  1. ex7a1HdownHstarLL: This file contains several speakers producing H+!H* L-L% on different words and short phrases.
  2. ex7a2HdownHstarHL: This file contains several speakers producing H+!H* H-L% on different words and short phrases.

B: Labelling Exercises

The following files have TextGrids provided that contain partial ToBI labels. The locations of pitch accents have been marked with “*” - your job is to determine what pitch accent label to use for each one.

  1. ex7b1yellow
  2. ex7b2amelia_amelia
  3. ex7b3onion
  4. ex7b4unusual
  5. ex7b5minerva
  6. ex7b6another

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

Section 2.8 Exercises: 3 Breaks, and the L- and H- Phrase Accents (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 16 .textgrid, 8 .wav, and 1 .pdf files.)

B: Labelling Exercises

The following files have TextGrids with words only.

  1. ex8b1insert (“I” means insert)
  2. ex8b2marmalade (Marianna made the marmalade)
  3. ex8b3armani (Armani made the monkey suit)
  4. ex8b4cigar (close but no cigar)
  5. ex8b5tomorrow (tomorrow morning)
  6. ex8b6tomorrow2 (tomorrow morning)
  7. ex8b7tomorrow3 (tomorrow morning)
  8. ex8b8another (another banana)

C: Further Exercises

  1. Try producing the same text with varying levels of break. For example, try producing a version with a 4 break, a 3 break and no break bigger than a 1 on the following texts:
    tomorrow morning
    tomorrow in the morning

  2. Some punctuation and prosody: Try reading the following texts, which have variation in their punctuation. Look at and try to label the break indices and any phrase accents and boundary tones on the different versions.
    a. Yes, I know. Yes I know. Yes! I know.
    Yes. I know. Yes….I know…

    b. No I’m not. No, I’m not. No! I’m not!
    No. I’m not. No…I’m not…

    c. We’re having peas and carrots or potatoes.
    We’re having peas, and carrots or potatoes.
    We’re having peas and carrots, or potatoes.
    We’re having peas, and carrots, or potatoes.

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

Section 2.9 Exercises: The Downstepped High Phrase Accent (!H-) (ZIP) (The ZIP file contains: 8 .wav files, 14 .textgrid files, and 1 .pdf file.)

A: Listening Exercises

  1. ex9a1laters: this file contains several speakers producing the word later. All but one have the !H-L% phrase accent boundary tone combination. Can you pick which?

B: Labelling Exercises

The following files have TextGrids with words only. Answer keys are provided.

  1. ex9b1cigar (close but no cigar)
  2. ex9b2cigar2 (close but no cigar)
  3. ex9b3goodbye1 (good-bye)
  4. ex9b4goodbye2 (good-bye)
  5. ex9b5later (catch ya later)
  6. ex9b6frozen (frozen)
  7. ex9b7anna (Anna Anna)

C: Further Exercises

  1. Produce and record (and try to label): Try the calling contour on a variety of names of differing lengths (and stress patterns), such as:
    Nel
    Nellie
    Melanie
    Melinda
    Annabel
    Marie
    Abercrombie
  2. Produce and record (and try to label): Try saying different greetings. Do you produce the !H- phrase accent on any of them?
    Hello
    good-bye
    bye
    later
    see ya later
    hi
    hey there

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