This commentary raises questions about the central concepts in the null hypothesis presented by the author of the target article and urges expansion of the treatment of mental imagery to forms of sensory imagery beyond the visual.

This second volume in the Counterpoints Series focuses on alternative models of visual-spatial processing in human cognition. The editors provide a historical and theoretical introduction and offer ideas about directions and new research designs.

This second volume in the Counterpoints Series focuses on alternative models of visual-spatial processing in human cognition. The editors provide a historical and theoretical introduction and offer ideas about directions and new research designs.

Intonation plays an integral role in comprehending spoken language. Listeners can rapidly integrate intonational information to predictively map a given pitch accent onto the speaker's likely referential intentions. We use mouse tracking to investigate two questions: (a) how listeners draw predictive inferences based on information from intonation? and (b) how listeners adapt their online interpretation of intonational cues when these are reliable or unreliable? We formulate a novel Bayesian model of rational predictive cue integration and explore predictions derived (...) under a concrete linking hypothesis relating a quantitative notion of evidential strength of a cue to the moment in time, relative to the unfolding speech signal, at which mouse trajectories turn towards the eventually selected option. In order to capture rational belief updates after concrete observations of a speaker's behavior, we formulate and explore an extension of this model that includes the listener's hierarchical beliefs about the speaker's likely production behavior. Our results are compatible with the assumption that listeners rapidly and rationally integrate all available intonational information, that they expect reliable intonational information initially, and that they adapt these initial expectations gradually during exposition to unreliable input. All materials, data, and scripts can be retrieved here: https://osf.io/dnbuk/. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of inquisitive rising declaratives (Gunlogson 2001, Jeong 2018) within the Table model (Farkas & Bruce 2010). On this account, intonational tunes are modifiers of context update functions: rising intonation removes the speaker commitment component of a context update. This delivers a compositional account of the contributions of sentence type and intonational tune to the illocutionary mood of an utterance, showing how the semantic type of declarative sentences, the rising intonational tune, and a general-purpose utterance (...) function (Farkas & Roelofsen 2017) conspire to derive the basic discourse effect of rising declaratives without any construction-specific stipulations. The account makes use of only the most fundamental representational primitives independently necessary to model assertions and neutral questions, showing that rising declaratives can be accounted for without recourse to projected commitments, metalinguistic issues, or explicit marking of commitment strength, evidence source, or epistemic bias (cf. Gunlogson 2008, Northrup 2014, Malamud & Stephenson 2015, Farkas & Roelofsen 2017). Inferences of bias generated by rising declaratives are accounted for with a novel pragmatics for the Table model, formalizing what is implicit in discussions of the role played in the model by speaker commitments and projected Common Grounds. (shrink)

Like non-verbal communication, paralinguistic communication is rooted in anatomical and physiological factors. Paralinguistic form-meaning relations arise from the way these affect speech production, with some fine-tuning by the cultural and linguistic context. The effects have been classified as “biological codes,” following the terminological lead of John Ohala's Frequency Code. Intonational morphemes, though arguably non-arbitrary in principle, are in fact heavily biased toward these paralinguistic meanings. Paralinguistic and linguistic meanings for four biological codes are illustrated. In addition to the Frequency Code, (...) the Effort Code, and the Respiratory Code, the Sirenic Code is introduced here, which is based on the use of whispery phonation, widely seen as being responsible for the signaling and perception of feminine attractiveness and sometimes used to express interrogativity in language. In the context of the evolution of language, the relations between physiological conditions and the resulting paralinguistic and linguistic meanings will need to be clarified. (shrink)

Fundamental frequency (ƒ0), perceived as pitch, is the first and arguably most salient auditory component humans are exposed to since the beginning of life. It carries multiple linguistic (e.g., word meaning) and paralinguistic (e.g., speakers’ emotion) functions in speech and communication. The mappings between these functions andƒ0features vary within a language and differ cross-linguistically. For instance, a rising pitch can be perceived as a question in English but a lexical tone in Mandarin. Such variations mean that infants must learn the (...) specific mappings based on their respective linguistic and social environments. To date, canonical theoretical frameworks and most empirical studies do not view or consider the multi-functionality ofƒ0, but typically focus on individual functions. More importantly, despite the eventual mastery ofƒ0in communication, it is unclear how infants learn to decompose and recognize these overlapping functions carried byƒ0. In this paper, we review the symbioses and synergies of the lexical, intonational, and emotional functions that can be carried byƒ0and are being acquired throughout infancy. On the basis of our review, we put forward the Learnability Hypothesis that infants decompose and acquire multipleƒ0functions through native/environmental experiences. Under this hypothesis, we propose representative cases such as the synergy scenario, where infants use visual cues to disambiguate and decompose the differentƒ0functions. Further, viable ways to test the scenarios derived from this hypothesis are suggested across auditory and visual modalities. Discovering how infants learn to master the diverse functions carried byƒ0can increase our understanding of linguistic systems, auditory processing and communication functions. (shrink)

We report on rapid perceptual learning of intonation contour categories in adults and 9- to 11-year-old children. Intonation contours are temporally extended patterns, whose perception requires temporal integration and therefore poses significant working memory challenges. Both children and adults form relatively abstract representations of intonation contours: Previously encountered and novel exemplars are categorized together equally often, as long as distance from the prototype is controlled. However, age-related differences in categorization performance also exist. Given the same experience, adults (...) form narrower categories than children. In addition, adults pay more attention to the end of the contour, while children appear to pay equal attention to the beginning and the end. The age range we examine appears to capture the tail-end of the developmental trajectory for learning intonation contour categories: There is a continuous effect of age on category breadth within the child group, but the oldest children are adult-like. (shrink)

Employing manifold symbolic, iconic, and indexical signs – whether linguistic or extralinguistic – along with their polysemic and multimodular features, edusemiotics is an integrative and interdisciplinary conceptual framework that surmounts learning processes where learners find significance and meaning under the assumed responsibility of English language teachers for the provision of such a participative environment. Allowing for the salience of intonation despite its intricate nature, thus its inevitable underrepresentation in course books and teaching practices, this article intends to propose a (...) novel means of intonation instruction as well as its components (i.e., stress, pitch, and juncture) for English language teacher education (henceforth ELTE) contexts within the edusemiotic framework. Promoting the importance of edusemiotic teaching of intonation, this article further aims to add to our understanding of how signs and sign systems can be benefitted in ELTE settings and their potential exploitation across various other disciplines. It concludes with suggestions for future research on more practical aspects of edusemiotic tools and learner and teacher attitudes toward integrating them within the teaching program. (shrink)

In this paper intonation is studied as a basic characteristic of music, and as a basis for verbal and non-verbal communication. Human thinking is not entirely mediated by verbal language and its richness surpasses the capacity of verbal expression. Considering intonation as a crucial means of communication and interaction, it is assumed that the need for communication could lie in the origins of music. Music permits us to put into practice various modes of social interaction. It is seen (...) as a unique type of social communication, through which information about the psycho-emotional life of people is transmitted more clearly and holistically than through verbal communication. (shrink)

In the origin of syntax, primitive, holophrastic signs had to be weakened and to lose their previous status of whole message. The original syntax was probably thema/rhema syntax. The earliest themas repeat the hearer’s message: the speaker embeds the hearer’s message in his own message. In this way a holophrase could be weakened, and turn into a part of a syntactic combination. This pregrammatical, interpersonal ‘recursive embedding’ is embodied in sensorimotor processes. The upper level is embodied in the intonation; (...) the lower level, in the articulatory-phonetic word. This decoupling of intonation and articulatory pattern—i.e. the emergence of intonation capable of comprising more than one word—facilitated the weakening of previous holophrases and the genesis of syntax. In time, that facilitation determined the preeminence of voice over gesture, regardless of whether or not that preeminence existed before syntax. (shrink)

The function of focus is to activate alternatives, and these activated alternatives are used to compute the corresponding inferences of an utterance. The experimental research reported here investigates the role of focus intonation in inference computation and its interplay with the overt focus particles only and also. In particular, I compare the mechanisms underlying the computation of exhaustivity implicatures, assertions, and additive presuppositions. A memory delay experiment revealed that contrastive intonation makes an exhaustive interpretation equally available as overt (...) only. A second experiment showed that in immediate processing, the implicature in bare focus conditions is delayed relative to the inferences associated with only and also. The findings thus indicate that L+H* accents do not conventionally encode an exhaustive meaning, but encourage implicature computation by making relevant alternatives salient and providing a strong cue that an inference should be derived. (shrink)

First published in 1980, this book questions many of the assumptions that have accumulated around the subject of intonation as it occurs in spontaneous speech, as well as texts read aloud. The book suggests alternative ways of examining the subject and primarily uses data derived from Edinburgh speech, which is explicitly compared with descriptions of standard southern English.The book critically examines many conventional assumptions made about the formal features of intonation, particularly 'tonic' or primary stress', and about the (...) functions of intonation, specifically rising intonation. A model of intonation is presented which demonstrates that the limited resources of intonation are exploited by several different expressive systems. This approach is justified in detailed analysis of extensive stretches of speech, supported by instrumental analysis as well as by experiments which elicit judgements by both naïve and phonetically trained judges. (shrink)

Uptalk is the use of a rising, questioning intonation when making a statement, which has become quite prevalent in contemporary American speech. Women tend to use uptalk more frequently than men do, though the reasons behind this difference are contested. I use the popular game show Jeopardy! to study variation in the use of uptalk among the contestants’ responses, and argue that uptalk is a key way in which gender is constructed through interaction. While overall, Jeopardy! contestants use uptalk (...) 37 percent of the time, there is much variation in the use of uptalk. The typical purveyor of uptalk is white, young, and female. Men use uptalk more when surrounded by women contestants, and when correcting a woman contestant after she makes an incorrect response. Success on the show produces different results for men and women. The more successful a man is, the less likely he is to use uptalk; the more successful a woman is, the more likely she is to use uptalk. (shrink)

As emphasized by Élisabeth Guimbretière (1994) and Bernard Dufeu (2008), the teaching of pronunciation, and in particular intonation, remains a neglected part of learning French as a foreign language. While FSL textbooks sometimes devote a few chapters to the pronunciation of syllables and words, intonation takes, at best, only a few paragraphs, describing the traditional functions of intonation indicating the declarative or interrogative modality of the sentence, and their variants. In fact, linguistic description, still based on written (...) text syntax, does not do much better and fails to clearly determine the role, however essential, of intonation in understanding speech. The current dominance of the autosegmental-metrical approach, mixing the phonetic and phonological aspects of intonation, does not help to clarify the issue.However, recent discoveries concerning the correlation between stress groups stressed syllables and brain waves, and in particular delta (varying from 0.8 to 4 Hz), theta (from 4 to 10 Hz) and gamma (from 30 to 80 Hz) accounts not only for the rhythmic variations of stress groups in French, but also allows to better understand the reasons to have a prosodic structure specific to every language. The fact that the prosodic structure pre-exists syntax and lexical selection both in production and perception, in spontaneous and read speech, justifies the imperative need to teach the prosodic system of the language in question before lexicon and syntax. (shrink)

Resumen: En este artículo se presentan los resultados iniciales del análisis del fenómeno del habla ascendente registrada en enunciados en foco amplio en seis hablantes monolingües de español y seis hablantes nativos de mapudungun con manejo funcional de español de la IX Región. Se analizaron acústicamente los fragmentos entonativos de los primeros cinco minutos de conversación de los hablantes bilingües para describir las alturas tonales de las sílabas nucleares y postnucleares. Estos se compararon con los enunciados equivalentes de hablantes monolingües. (...) Los resultados expresados en notación fonológica y en semitonos muestran una tendencia a un mayor ascenso tonal en hablantes de la zona precordillerana en comparación con hablantes de zonas rurales más próximas a la capital de la Región.: This paper presents preliminary outcomes of the analysis of the rising tone phenomenon found in utterances with a wide focus produced by six monolingual Spanish speakers and six native speakers of Mapudungun who have a functional command of Spanish, all of them from Región de La Araucanía in Chile. The intonational phrases of the five first minutes of conversation with native speakers were analyzed in order to describe the pitch of nuclear and postnuclear syllables. These were later compared with equivalent utterances produced by monolingual speakers. The outcomes, expressed in phonological notation and in semitones, show a tendency to a higher tone rise in speakers from the foothills of the Andes mountain range as compared with speakers from rural areas located nearer the capital of the Region. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to present an intonative curve that accompanies the repetition of a previous statement, questioning the validity of this statement. This intonation itself constitutes a critical commentary on the adequacy of what is said to properly represent the state of things considered true by the speaker-enunciator, so it is clearly of a metalinguistic nature. In contrast to other intonations of modal or attitudinal value, we analyse its formal and semantic characteristics, proposing to relate these (...) two orders of parameters. (shrink)

Playing with correct intonation is one of the major challenges for a string player. A player must learn how to physically reproduce a target pitch, but before that, the player must learn what correct intonation is. This requires audiation- the aural equivalent of visualization- of every note along with self-assessment whether the pitch played matches the target, and if not, what action should be taken to correct it. A challenge for successful learning is that much of it occurs (...) during practice, typically without outside supervision. A student who has not yet learned to hear correct intonation may repeatedly practice out of tune, blithely normalising bad habits and bad intonation. The real-time reflective nature of intonation and its consistent demand on attention make it a ripe target for technological intervention. Using a violin augmented to combine fingerboard sensors with audio analysis for real-time pitch detection, we examine the efficacy of three methods of real-time feedback for improving intonation and pitch learning. The first, aural feedback in the form of an in-tune guide pitch following the student in real-time, is inspired by the tradition of students playing along with teachers. The second is visual feedback on intonation correctness using an algorithm optimised for use throughout normal practice. The third is a combination of the two methods, simultaneously providing aural and visual feedback. Twelve beginning violinists, including children and adults, were given four in-situ 20-30 minute lessons. Each lesson used one of the intonation feedback methods, along with a control lesson using no feedback. We collected data on intonation accuracy and conducted interviews on student experience and preference. The results varied by player, with evidence of some players being helped by the feedback methods but also cases where the feedback was distracting and intonation suffered. However interviews suggested a high level of interest and potential in having such tools to help during practice, and results also suggested that it takes time to learn to use the real-time aural and visual feedback. Both methods of feedback demonstrate potential for assisting self-reflection during individual practice. (shrink)

RESUMO O objeto de estudo do presente artigo é o conceito de entoação visual negra formulado pelo multiartista Arthur Jafa no vídeo-ensaio Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death (2016). Com o objetivo de descobrir a singularidade do cinema negro na composição fílmica, o artista construiu um experimento e examina como memórias encarnadas afloram sob forma de cantos e danças, realinhando formas culturais tradicionais que a travessia diaspórica dispersou. Conclui-se, assim, que a singularidade estético-política do cinema negro emerge na (...) entoação verbi-voco-visual negra que, assim, exterioriza energias interiores interativas e organiza um espaço crítico-discursivo no qual pessoas pretas podem falar de si, de seus desejos, sonhos e aflições. (shrink)

This paper provides a semantic analysis of English rise-fall-rise (RFR) intonation as a focus quantifier over assertable alternative propositions. I locate RFR meaning in the conventional implicature dimension, and propose that its effect is calculated late within a dynamic model. With a minimum of machinery, this account captures disambiguation and scalar effects, as well as interactions with other focus operators like ‘only’ and clefts. Double focus data further support the analysis, and lead to a rejection of Ward and Hirschberg’s (...) (Language 61:747–776, 1985) claim that RFR never disambiguates. Finally, I draw out connections between RFR and contrastive topic (CT) intonation (Büring, Linguist Philos 26:511–545, 2003), and show that RFR cannot simply be reduced to a sub-case of CT. (shrink)

This experiment investigated the relative contribution of context and tone of voice in the perception of sarcasm in short utterances. Eighty-two participants heard short stories read in a monotone voice reflecting either a positive or a negative context, followed by a relevant statement in a sarcastic or sincere tone of voice. Context and tone of voice were either congruent (e.g., positive context with sincere tone) or incongruent (e.g., positive context with sarcastic tone). Participants were asked to rate from 1 to (...) 7 whether they perceived the statement as very sincere (1) or very sarcastic (7). Results indicated a significant context by tone interaction on both ratings and response time. Specifically, mid-range ratings and longer reaction times were obtained when context and tone were incongruent compared to when they were congruent. The discussion emphasizes the interplay of context and tone of voice in the perception of a sarcastic statement. (shrink)

The ‘notorious unreadability’ of Bartleby can be summarised by Derrida's brief provocation: ‘Is it not as if Bartleby were also speaking “in tongues”?’ Here, the modality of Melville's unreadability is not only Bartleby's indeterminate sentence, but how Melville's characters more generally become processes of depersonalisation or deidentification, such that their ‘characteristics’ resonate in the circumambient air of Melville's writing. This process is thematised in Deleuze's writing on Melville in terms of a vibration or a murmur, a thematisation which Rancière has (...) recently critiqued. (shrink)

Includes bibliographical references (p. [271]-285) and index.

The present article starts from the following question: which instruction of meaning construction is given by intonation? Intonation seemingly gives an instruction aiming at structuring or restructuring the verbal scene (the representation yielded by the sentence). Its action does not concern the processing of the units of the sentence; it rather favours attentional focalisation. What is salient in the sentence is neither some particular units, not their schematic forms, but various steps of the coalescence of schematic forms, various (...) « moments » of the construction of meaning. Besides, the prosodic instruction seems to be given by some units acting as « check points » in the coalescence of schematic forms and being profiled as concentration points in the structuring of the verbal scene, thus drawing specific regions on the scene. (shrink)

Die Arbeit zur regionalen Variation der Intonation bietet einen Forschungsüberblick über existierende Studien zum Thema und widmet sich dann der Analyse der Intonation der kölnischen Regionalvarietät auf der Basis von spontansprachlichen Daten. Die Analyse kombiniert Methoden des autosegmental-metrischen Ansatzes mit denen der Interaktionalen Linguistik. Da sich der autosegmental-metrische Ansatz in den letzten Jahren zum gängigen Beschreibungsansatz in der Intonationsforschung entwickelt hat, ist auf diese Weise eine Vergleichbarkeit der verschiedenen Untersuchungsergebnisse gewährleistet. Der Ansatz der Interaktionalen Linguistik erlaubt es darüber (...) hinaus, die tatsächliche Verwendungsweise der Intonationsverläufe durch die Interaktionsteilnehmer aufzuzeigen. Im Zentrum des Interesses stehen zwei steigend-fallende Konturen, die typisch für das Kölnische sind. Sie werden auf phonetischer, tonologischer und phonologischer (d.h. konversationell-funktionaler) Ebene analysiert. Die Arbeit verdeutlicht die große Bandbreite formaler Variation und zeigt, wie die Beteiligten Intonation als Ressource zur Gestaltung der Interaktion nutzen. (shrink)

This study investigates whether morphosyntactic iconicity echoes across gesture and intonation within the framework of Construction Grammar (CxG). Using corpus data from the NewsScape archive, three verbal patterns – repeatedly, over and over (OAO), and over and over and over (OAOAO) – were compared in terms of their co-expressive gestures and intonation. Bayesian mixed-effects logistic regression analyses confirmed that morphosyntactic iconicity affects both gestural and vocal iconicity, with cyclic gestures, repeated beats, and duplicate pitch increasing in parallel with (...) the degree of morphosyntactic iconicity. Crucially, cyclic gestures, as opposed to repeated beats and duplicate pitch, qualitatively transform the utterance’s meaning through their embodied metaphoricity iteration as cycle. We argue that such qualitative contributions to meaning are key to positing a multimodal construction, whereas formal features that contribute only quantitatively to meaning, such as repeated beats and duplicate pitch, are best understood as constituting mere associations with verbal expressions, thus remaining as variations of a construction conceived as a prototype category. By combining qualitative analysis with quantitative findings, this study advocates for a “qualitative turn” in the study of multimodal constructions, emphasizing iconicity, embodiment, and idiomaticity over frequency alone. (shrink)

New method for making corpus with annotation of gesture and prosodic featuresThis article aims to provide a method for making corpus with gesture and prosodic features, which have little been taken into account to date. As constituent elements, gesture’s formal and kinesic aspects and temporal and functional relationship between gesture and discourse are explained to better understand organization of discourse and interaction. A thematization is analysed as an example.