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Phonetic Representation of Intonation in Persian Vocative Structures

Bahmanian, Nasimeh | 2017

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  1. Type of Document: M.Sc. Thesis
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 49496 (31)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Languages and Linguistics Center
  6. Advisor(s): Eslami, Moharram; Bahrani, Mohammad
  7. Abstract:
  8. This study investigates the intonational properties of vocative structure in standard Persian in the framework of Auto-segmental-metrical phonology. Pitch accent is one of the elements whithin this framework, that refers to the prominence in the utterance. In Persian all lexical units are stressed in their final syllable and there is a language-specific feature in Persian according to which pitch accents are aligned with lexically stressed syllables. Contrary to the said feature, previous studies claim that in vocative structure, it is the first syllable that is accented, due to the difference existed between intonation pattern of vocative structure compared to its citation form. The data used in this investigation, were uttered by six native speakers of Persian, three male and three female. They were asked to read 30 utterances containing 20 Iranian proper names in two forms: once in vocative and once in citation form. 15 out of 20 names were of 2 to 4 syllables phonotactically, and composed of sonorant consonants in their segmental string, to avoid devoicing in the F0 contour and to minimize the consonantal effects in the stressed syllable. Finding one-syllabic names based on such criteria was impossible, and we used them to justify the findings in other parts of the investigation.The present study suggests the intonational pattern of ^H+H* H- for vocative structure in Persian, using Persian Tone and Break Indices (PToBI) annotations. Here ^H stands for early peak aligned with the second syllable, and H* stands for the pitch accent aligned with the lexically stressed, here the last syllable. H-stands for the phrase tone which signals the non-finality in the vocative utterance. Perceptual experiments support the hypotheses behind the study in two ways: first, by substituting F0 values of the assumed accented syllable by the values in its citation form pair in two-syllabic words. Second, by making incremental changes in F0 contour in three sets of stimuli: (1) initial pitch contour before the start of rising tone leading to peak, (2) peak location, and (3) final part of the contour after the fall from the peak. Praat (version 6.0.23) was used as a complete phonetic laboratory tool in all stages
  9. Keywords:
  10. Pitch Accent ; Fundamental Frequency ; Intonation ; Persian Language ; Vocative Constraction Intonation ; Early Peak

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