Pitch accent and intonation in Cayuga: an acoustic analysis and ToBI recommendations

Williams, Lana Maria (2013) Pitch accent and intonation in Cayuga: an acoustic analysis and ToBI recommendations. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis provides an acoustic analysis of prosody in Cayuga (Northern Iroquoian) narrative speech. I analyze the relationship between acoustic variables (e.g. pitch, intensity, and duration) and the language's prosodic system (more specifically, its accent and intonation patterns) using Praat scripting and statistical analysis. Through this research I found that (a) pitch is the acoustic variable most relevant to describing Cayuga pitch accent and intonational patterns; (b) Cayuga intonation patterns can be described within the Generative framework proposed by Pierrehumbert and Beckman (Beckman 1996; Pierrehumbert 1980; Pierrehumbert and Beckman 1988)); and (c) Cayuga intonation patterns are generally 'additive', in the sense that a combination of word-accent (pitch-accent) and phrasal accents (boundary tones) determines the overall contour of the intonation pattern. Additionally, l propose a framework for annotating Cayuga prosody using a Tone and Break index (ToBI) system that has been set up to account the prosody of narratives in Cayuga.

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