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Chapter 4. Basic units of speech segmentation

  • Marianne Mithun
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In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language
This chapter is in the book In Search of Basic Units of Spoken Language

Abstract

The segmentation of the monologue Navy and the dialogue Hearts described here is based solely on the acoustic signal. The unit of reference is the intonation unit as defined in the work of Chafe, characterized by a single, coherent pitch contour. Units defined by pitch often coincide with intensity, pauses, rhythm, and phonation type, though not always. In English they typically begin with a pitch reset followed by declination. Series of intonation units often form larger prosodic sentences, which can show an overall declination in pitch, often with intermediate pitch resets at the beginning of each unit. As shown by Chafe (1987, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2018), each unit tends to convey one new idea or focus of consciousness. They often correlate with syntactic constituents or sentences, though not always.

Abstract

The segmentation of the monologue Navy and the dialogue Hearts described here is based solely on the acoustic signal. The unit of reference is the intonation unit as defined in the work of Chafe, characterized by a single, coherent pitch contour. Units defined by pitch often coincide with intensity, pauses, rhythm, and phonation type, though not always. In English they typically begin with a pitch reset followed by declination. Series of intonation units often form larger prosodic sentences, which can show an overall declination in pitch, often with intermediate pitch resets at the beginning of each unit. As shown by Chafe (1987, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2018), each unit tends to convey one new idea or focus of consciousness. They often correlate with syntactic constituents or sentences, though not always.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction. In search of a basic unit of spoken language 1
  5. Part I
  6. Chapter 1. Russian spoken discourse 35
  7. Chapter 2. The basic unit of spoken language and the interfaces between prosody, discourse and syntax 77
  8. Chapter 3. Prosody and the organization of information in Central Pomo, a California indigenous language 107
  9. Chapter 4. Syntactic and prosodic segmentation in spoken French 127
  10. Chapter 5. Design and annotation of two-level utterance units in Japanese 155
  11. Chapter 6. The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory 181
  12. Chapter 7. Illocution as a unit of reference for spontaneous speech 221
  13. Chapter 8. Narrative discourse segmentation in clinical linguistics 257
  14. Chapter 9. Cross-linguistic comparison of automatic detection of speech breaks in read and narrated speech in four languages 285
  15. Part II
  16. Same texts, different approaches to segmentation 303
  17. Chapter 1. Segmentation and analysis of the two English excerpts 309
  18. Chapter 2. Analysis of two English spontaneous speech examples with the dependency incremental prosodic structure model 327
  19. Chapter 3. Applying criteria of spontaneous Hebrew speech segmentation to English 337
  20. Chapter 4. Basic units of speech segmentation 349
  21. Chapter 5. Segmentation of the English texts Navy and Hearts with SUU and LUU 359
  22. Chapter 6. The Moscow approach to local discourse structure 367
  23. Chapter 7. Some notes on the Hearts and Navy excerpts according to the Language into Act Theory 383
  24. Chapter 8. Comparing annotations for the prosodic segmentation of spontaneous speech 403
  25. Index 433
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.94.13mit

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xi
  4. Introduction. In search of a basic unit of spoken language 1
  5. Part I
  6. Chapter 1. Russian spoken discourse 35
  7. Chapter 2. The basic unit of spoken language and the interfaces between prosody, discourse and syntax 77
  8. Chapter 3. Prosody and the organization of information in Central Pomo, a California indigenous language 107
  9. Chapter 4. Syntactic and prosodic segmentation in spoken French 127
  10. Chapter 5. Design and annotation of two-level utterance units in Japanese 155
  11. Chapter 6. The pragmatic analysis of speech and its illocutionary classification according to the Language into Act Theory 181
  12. Chapter 7. Illocution as a unit of reference for spontaneous speech 221
  13. Chapter 8. Narrative discourse segmentation in clinical linguistics 257
  14. Chapter 9. Cross-linguistic comparison of automatic detection of speech breaks in read and narrated speech in four languages 285
  15. Part II
  16. Same texts, different approaches to segmentation 303
  17. Chapter 1. Segmentation and analysis of the two English excerpts 309
  18. Chapter 2. Analysis of two English spontaneous speech examples with the dependency incremental prosodic structure model 327
  19. Chapter 3. Applying criteria of spontaneous Hebrew speech segmentation to English 337
  20. Chapter 4. Basic units of speech segmentation 349
  21. Chapter 5. Segmentation of the English texts Navy and Hearts with SUU and LUU 359
  22. Chapter 6. The Moscow approach to local discourse structure 367
  23. Chapter 7. Some notes on the Hearts and Navy excerpts according to the Language into Act Theory 383
  24. Chapter 8. Comparing annotations for the prosodic segmentation of spontaneous speech 403
  25. Index 433
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