file. We therefore start our transcription/segmentation with Praat, not ELAN. Moreover,
Praat files can be used for further studies on intonation, which is not possible with ELAN.
3.1 Intonation units
In practice, segmentation of a discourse flow into intonation units is mostly made by
detecting their boundaries. The major perceptual and acoustic cues for boundary
recognition are the following:
(1) final lengthening; (2) initial rush (anacrusis); (3) pitch reset; (4) pause.
Still, some inner-unit prosodic features can be used for the recognition and segmenting of
a speech stretch into intonation units. The main two "internal" features are:
(1) declination; (2) isotony (or tonic parallelism).
We distinguish between units with minor (non-terminal) break and units with major
(terminal) breaks, using the software Praat. No other specification (tones, contours, etc.)
is given to those boundaries, but the fact that the transcription is indexed to the sound,
itself available in .wav format, will allow more in-depth prosodic studies on the available
data.
A major unit is one that is perceived as carrying a terminal boundary tone. A minor unit
is perceived as carrying a continuing boundary tone. The distinction between major and
minor units is a fine-grained one, which becomes clearer with practice. Pitch dropping
towards the bottom of the range is the unmarked cue of final boundary. But final
boundaries can sometimes go up. A convenient procedure is to listen to the current
Intonation Unit, without getting influenced by the following one: if you feel the utterance
should be continued, then the IU is minor (non-terminal). Note that the size of pitch reset
is not decisive for distinguishing between major and minor.
For more information: Izre'el and Mettouchi, Representation of Speech in CorpAfroAs:
Transcriptional Strategies and Prosodic Units
(http://web.me.com/aminamettouchi/CORPAFROAS/Publications.html).
There can be confusion between pauses and prosodic breaks. Intonation-unit boundaries
are not necessarily indicated by pauses, but rather by a cluster of acoustic parameters.
Pauses are silent moments whose duration can be calculated. Pauses are not necessarily
the sign of the presence of a boundary but they often do indicate a boundary.
There can be other cues for segmentation: parallelism of the two pitch curves, length of
the final syllable, rush of the following one, creaky voice, pitch reset … Please note that
some languages rely more on some cues than others do. So it might be the case that the
language a researcher is working on uses duration or creaky voice as dominant cues, and
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