Shifted topics

Workshop ʻInformation structure in spoken language corporaʼ
June 10-12, 2013
University of Bielefeld, Germany
A quantitative study of sentence topic
and its syntactic/prosodic correlates on a French spoken corpus:
methodological and theoretical issues
Lisa Brunetti
Laboratoire de Linguistique Formelle & Université Paris Diderot
[email protected]
Mathieu Avanzi
Université de Neuchatel
Cédric Gendrot
Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie et Université Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle
1
Introduction
Clitic Left Dislocation (ClLD): The subject/object occupies a left peripheral position and
co-refers with a resumptive clitic inside the matrix clause.
(1)!
a. Les garçonsj ilsj
the boys
jouent au
theycl play
foot.
Subject ClLD
at.the soccer
ʻ(As for) the boys, they play soccerʼ
b. Les autresj je lesj
connais pas.
Object ClLD
the others I themcl know not
ʻ(As for) the other ones, I donʼt know themʼ
❖ «NPs in left-dislocated position are structurally marked topics : the sentence is used to
assert something about its referent» (de Swart & de Hoop 1995).
(Cf. Lambrecht 1994, De Cat 2007, a.o. for French)
❖ The dislocated element displays different degrees of prosodic prominence.
(Delais-Roussarie et al. 2004, Mertens 2008, Avanzi 2012).
Introduction
(1)!
a. Les garçonsj ilsj
the boys
jouent au
theycl play
foot.
Subject ClLD
at.the soccer
ʻ(As for) the boys, they play soccerʼ
b. Les autresj je lesj
connais pas.
Object ClLD
the others I them know not
ʻ(As for) the other ones, I donʼt know themʼ
Research questions
❖ Prosodic variation is related to different topic types.
(Frascarelli & Hinterhoelzl 07, Gundel & Fretheim 04, cf. Lambrecht 1994, Buring 1997, Marandin et al. 2002...).
Is this confirmed by quantitative corpus analysis?
❖ Dislocated subjects are much more frequent than objects, and it has been hypothesized
that they are not dislocated (Zribi-Hertz 1994, Fonseca-Greber & Waugh 2003, a.o.).
Are they also prosodically and/or pragmatically different?
Data
Two spontaneous speech corpora:
105 utterances : Parisian French (CFPP, Branca et al. 2009)
104 utterances : Southern French (CID, Bertrand et. al 2008)
166 utterances containing a ClLDed subject NP
43 utterances containing an ClLDed object NP
33 speakers, each producing between 1 and 31 utterances.
Criteria for choosing the utterances
๏ Subjects co-refer with a 3rd p. clitic (il(s)/elle(s));
๏ Objects co-refer with a 3rd p. accusative (le(s)/la), dative (lui/leur), partitive (en), or locative
(y) clitic;
๏ The NP comprises 2 to 6 syllables;
๏ Declarative sentences (can be subordinate clauses);
๏ Not part of “directed speech”.
4
Prosodic processing
❖ Sentences are first transcribed and aligned with the EasyAlign software (Goldman 2011).
❖ The Analor software is used for prosodic processing (Avanzi et al. 2011):
‣ Automatic detection of accentual prominence on the basis of three parameters:
f0, duration, pause.
Quantity principle : the higher the number of acoustic parameters and their
threshold, the more the prominence is perceived as strong.
Compensation principle between the acoustic parameters.
‣
each syllable is assigned a score indicating the degree of relative force (0/10 to 10/10).
5
Prosodic processing
Score 7/10. Final syllable of les gamins: melodic rising of 7 mid-tones and relative
lengthening of about 50%.
Fig 1. Screen copy of Analor. Analysis of et les gamins ils étaient punis euh mercredi après-midi.
6
Prosodic processing
Score 3/10. Final syllable of l’aînée. 3 semitones of difference between the average of the points of f0 compared with the preceeding and following syllables; 50% rela<vely higher length.
Fig. Screen copy of Analor. Analysis of l’ainée elle est née en trente huit [CFPP].
7
Prosodic processing
Score 1/10. Final syllable of le mec: no lengthening and no perceptible melodic mouvement.
Fig. Screen copy of Analor. Analysis of le mec il est sympa il est souriant [CID].
8
Prosodic processing
Score 7/10. Final syllable of premiers. melodic rise of 3.5 semitones on the vocalic nucleus (-­‐e), syllable rela<ve lengthening of more than 50% Fig. Screen copy of Analor. Analysis of les premiers tu le prends [CID].
9
Pragmatic coding*
Cf. Frascarelli and Hinterhoelzl 2007, Erteschik-Shir et al. (submitted); Buring 1997..
Aboutness topic
textually given and d-linked with a
Continuing topic
pre-established aboutness topic
Shifted topic
Contrastive topic
newly introduced or newly changed to
An element that induces alternatives and creates
oppositional pairs with respect to other topics.
* Thanks to Floriane Guida for collaborating in the pragmatic annotation.
Pragmatic coding
Continuing topics
«Typically, shifted topics are full NPs, whereas continuing topics may also be given by pronouns.» (de
Swart & de Hoop 1995)
“...a given or accessible constituent, which is typically destressed and realized in a pronominal form”.
(Frascarelli & Hinterhoelzl 2007:2).
Why should a continuing topic be realized as a full NP?
11
Pragmatic coding
Continuing topics
Why should a continuing topic be realized as a full NP?
Emphasizing device?
(2) a. EB: tu vois des fois il fait: «c'est quand même moi qui suis informaticien [...], je sais de quoi je parle»
ʻyou see sometimes he says: I am the computer specialist [...], I know what Iʼm saying»ʼ
b. SR : il est pas diplomate
ʻhe is not diplomaticʼ
c. EB : et ouais non et Rémi il est pas diplomate
ʻno, Rémi, he is not diplomatic at allʼ
d. SR: il est pas diplomate
ʻhe is not diplomaticʼ
e. EB : ouais il sait pas dire les choses
ʻyeah, he doesnʼt know how to say thingsʼ
Turn shift?
(3) spk3 : y a l' parc Montreau qui est à proximité qui est plutôt joli pour aller s' balader voilà
there is the park Montreau that is close that is rather nice to go take a walk
spk2: l' parc Montreau il est merveilleux
the park Montreau it is marvellous
12
Pragmatic coding
Continuing topics
Why should a continuing topic be realized as a full NP?
Continuing topic or... shifted discourse topic? (cf. Brunetti 2009a for Italian)
«In the case of languages that employ both topicalization and topic drop to mark topics, there may be
a division of labor such that the former applies to shifted topics, whereas the latter applies to
continued topics. This is generally the case in both Russian and Hebrew » Erteschik-Shir et al.
(submitted)
(4) a. Spk1: est-ce qu'y avait des différences dans vos façons de parler et celles de vos parents vos grands-parents [...]
ʻWere there differences between your way of speaking and that of your parents, your grand-parents [...]ʼ
b. Spk2: oh bah moi autant j' peux être bavarde autant ma grand-mère j'entendais pratiquement pas parler
ʻOh well, as much I can be talkative as my grand-mother barely spokeʼ
c. Spk1: ouais mais votre grand-mère elle était de langue maternelle it- parl- Pia- Piacenza
ʻYes, but your grand-motherʼs native language was Ital- she sp- Pia- Piacenza...?ʼ
d. Spk2: ma grand-mère elle était d'un village de Piacenza elle était pas d' Piacenza elle était de Ponto dell'Olio
ʻMy grand-mother, she was from a village around Piacenza, she was not from Piacenza, she was from Ponto
dellʼOlioʼ
13
Problematic cases
Continuing topic or shifted topic?
(5)! a. spk1 : mm donc vos deux parents travaillaient au moment où ils se [...] sont rencontrés [...]
ʻmhm, so both of your parents were working when [...] they met? [...]ʼ
b. spk1 : et ils travaillaient dans dans quelle profession ?
ʻAnd which was their profession?ʼ
c. spk2 : maman elle travaillait dans elle était soudeuse de... comment ça s'appelle ? [...]
ʻMum, she worked in... she was a welder of... how do you call it? [...]ʼ
d. spk1: des agrafes ?
ʻStaples?ʼ
e. spk2 : des agrafes ouais + elle soudait des agrafes
ʻYes, staples! She welded staples [...]ʼ
f. spk1 : et votre père ?
ʻAnd your father?ʼ
g. spk2 : mon père il était monteur en bronze
ʻMy father, he was a fitter of bronzeʼ
14
Pragmatic coding
Shifted topics
1. Shifted topics (new)
Dislocations «show up most often in an environment in which the referent does not appear in the
immediately prior discourse [...]. In producing a left-dislocated construction, the speaker introduces or
re-introduces a discourse referent [...]. » (de Swart & de Hoop 1995)
(6)! BX : et euh le chien apparemment connaissait parfaitement le coin et euh quand on est parti
euh le chien a décidé de nous suivre [...]
ʻApparently the dog knew the place very well and when we left, the dog decided to follow us [...]
MG : ouais Tara elle fait ça aussi
ʻYeah, Tara, she does that tooʼ
2. Shifted topics (intro): introduced after a semantically related topic
(7) le collège vous savez les jeunes ils veulent toujours essayer d'sortir
ʻMiddle school, you know, kids, they always try to go outʼ
(8) les enfants maintenant les parents ils mettent une raclée [...]
ʻChildren, nowadays, the(ir) parents spank them [...]ʼ
15
Pragmatic coding
Shifted topics
3. Shifted topic (promotion)
(9) AC : donc j'ai cherché Louis et Louis il était au second
ʻso I looked for Louis and Louis, he was at the second (floor)ʼ
(10) AG : quand les dirigeants ils avaient écrit la liste des joueurs ils avaient filé ça au journaliste,
ʻwhen the directors had written the list of players they had pass it to the journalistʼ
le journaliste il avait vu «GHIO» [...]
ʻthe journalist, he had seen «GHIO»[...]ʼ
16
Pragmatic coding
Shifted topics
4. Shifted topic (resumptive)
The material between the topic and its antecedent can be of different length.
NB: The speaker wants to recall a previous discourse, not just a previous topic referent (a
topic and what is said about it).
(11) a. moi je sais qu'j'ai un fleuriste toujours où j'vais là tout l'temps;
ʻI know I have a florist where I go all the timeʼ
b. euh... le poisson c'est toujours au même endroit; charcuterie toujours...
ʻehm... fish is always at the same place; cooked meats, always...ʼ
c. [...] et l'fleuriste elle me connaît bien
ʻand the florist she knows me very wellʼ
d. elle sait que je travaille à l'école elle me donne toujours des fleurs fraîches
ʻshe knows I work at the school, she always gives me fresh flowersʼ
Pragmatic coding
Shifted topics
5. Shifted topics (alt)
«Shifted topics are topics whose discourse referent constitutes a set.» (Erteschik-Shir et al. submitted)
« A partially ordered set is a set containing elements that are ordered according to a relation [...] e.g.
is taller than, is part of, is a subtype of.» (De Cat 2007) (cf. Ward and Prince 1991)
(12) AP: a. parce que y avait Nassima qui travaillait avec moi aussi
ʻbecause Nassima as well worked there with meʼ
[...]
b. elle se retrouvait seule sans plongeur
ʻshe [the boss] would be left without a dish-washerʼ
c. parce que moi je faisais la plonge un peu de service,
ʻbecause I washed the dishes, and waited tables a littleʼ
d. Nassima elle faisait le service
ʻNassima, she waited tablesʼ
18
Pragmatic coding
Contrastive topics
What do we mean by ʻcontrastʼ?
Cf. Myhill and Xing 1996
Oppositional pairs between alternatives that are members of a set.
What the utterance predicates of the topic must have opposite meaning than what is predicated of the
alternative.
-! The two utterances may contain the same verb but in one case it is negated;
-! The two utterances contain verbs with opposite meaning, such as accept vs reject, etc., or expressing
opposite directions such as tcome vs go, etc.
- The whole VP (V+arguments) may have an opposite meaning;
Cf. Lists: Alternatives are different but no opposite meaning is predicated about them (see «Shifted
top (alt))».
Different degrees of how explicit the contrast is:
- !the contrasted alternative may be present in previous discourse or implicit;
- if present, it may be more or less clearly contrasted, for instance an explicit lexical contrastive marker
(mais ʻbutʼ...) may be present or not;
- the contrasted utterance in the discourse, if present, may precede or follow the utterance containing
the contrastive topic.
19
Pragmatic coding
Contrastive topics
Exemples
- Presence of lexical marker; first utterance of the contrasting pair
(13)!
a. spk1: donc vous êtes plutôt plus politisées que la plupart de vos camarades je vois
ʻSo I see that you are more politicized than most of your friendsʻ [...]
b. spk2 : non mais y a aussi la pression des parents
ʻNo, but there is also the parentsʼ pressureʼ
c. spk3 : oui voilà c'est ça [...] moi j'ai la chance que
ma mère elle accepte,
ʻYes, of course [...] I am lucky that, (as for) my mother, she accepts that,ʼ
mais y en a plein enfin je sais que si ils ont des absences leurs parents supporteront pas
ʻbut many of them, I know that if they make some absences [from school], their parents wonʼt bear itʼ
- Lexical marker? ; Second utterance of the contrasting pair
(14)!
a. Moi j'adorais ça [faire les courses, ndr]
me I loved that [to do the grocery shopping]
b. ah ma soeur elle était plus timide plus réservée
ah my sister she was more shy more descrete
20
Pragmatic coding
Contrastive topics
Exemples
- No explicit contrasted utterance, although an explicit opposite alternative to the topic:
(15)!AC : parce que il est pas amené à connaître des gamins de son âge il doit avoir moins de copains ;
ʻSince he is not led to meet children his age, he must have less friendsʼ
il finira complètement asocial enfermé dans un labo ! quelle horreur, le pauvre gosse
ʻheʼll end up totally asocial, closed up in a lab ! How horrible, poor thingʼ
MB : ben en fait euh les autres ils se regroupent autour d'activités tu vois soit ils sortent ils vont au
ciné ou je sais pas quoi
ʻwell, as a matter of fact, the others, they gather around activities you know, either they go out they
go to the movies or whateverʼ
- No clear opposite alternative to the topic, although an explicit contrasted utterance:
(16)! Aix-en-Provence jʼaime beaucoup
ʻAix-en-Provence, I love it very much,ʼ
mais mes racines elles sont à Grenoble.
ʻbut (as for) my roots, they are in Grenobleʼ
21
Problematic cases
Contrastive or shifted?
(17) spk1 : le passage de la de la maison à l'extérieur avant le mariage [...] ça s'est fait comment
ʻthe passage from home to outside, before marriage [...] how is it done?ʼ
spk2 : ah pour mes enfants
ʻfor my children?ʼ
spk1 : pour vous et pour eux ?
ʻfor you and for them?ʼ
spk2: a. pour moi c'était hors de question bien évidemment [...]
ʻfor me, it was out of question, of course [...]ʼ
mais je dirais que bon ça c'était ma génération,
ʻbut I would say well, that was my generationʼ
b. ben mes enfants ils se sont installés chez eux quand ils m'ont dit qu'ils voulaient
s'installer chez eux
ʻ(as for) my children, they went living by themselves when they told me that they wanted
to go living by themselvesʼ
22
Problematic cases
Contrastive or continuing?
(18) a. spk1 : après ils reviennent vous voir quelque fois les gens, ils vous saluent?
ʻand later, do people come visit you sometimes?ʼ
b. spk 2 : oui y a des enfants mais pas trop
ʻyes, some kids, but not manyʼ
c. spk 1: les collégiens?
ʻmiddle-school kids?ʼ
d. spk2 : ah non les collégiens ah non on vient pas voir la gardienne de l'école [laughs]
ʻoh no, middle-school kids oh no, they donʼt go see the school janitorʼ
e. spk1 : non
ʻthey donʼt?ʼ
f. spk2 : non non les collégiens ils sont assez fiers d'eux-mêmes
ʻno, no, middle-school kids, they are pretty proudʼ
23
Results and discussion
Relationship between prosody and topic type
Brunetti, Avanzi, Gendrot 2012
ClLDed subjects : Test ANOVA: significant global effect (F=7.793 p=0.000727***).
Test post-hoc : resumptive vs active topics (p=0.004)
resumptive vs semi-active topics (p=0.0003)
active vs semi-active topics (p=0.94).
!
24
Results and discussion
Relationship between prosody and topic type
s
c
o
r
e
continuing
contrastive
shifted
!
s
c
o
r
e
continuing
contrastive
shift (new) shift (alt)
shift (intr) promoted resumptive
s
c
o
r
e
continuing
promoted
resumptive
contrastive+shift(alt) shift(new+intr)
!
Results and discussion
Relationship between prosody and topic type
Subjects vs objects
s
c
o
r
e
s
c
o
r
e
continuing
object
subjet
contrastive
shifted
!
!
s
c
o
r
e
continuing
promoted
resumptive
contrastive+shift(alt) shift+shift(intr)
!
Results and discussion
Relationship between grammatical function and topic type
Subjects vs objects
subject
object
total
Continuing topic
11
4
15
Shifted topic (new)
120
15
135
Shifted topic (intro)
8
3
11
Shifted topic (promotion)
17
6
23
Shifted topic (resumptive)
43
9
52
Shifted topic (alt)
21
8
29
Contrastive topic
22
19
41
All
242
64
306
27
Results and discussion
Subjects vs objects
Types of topics
objects
subjects
4,5 %
6,3 %
4,7 %
29,7 %
3,3 %
Contrastive Top
Shift top (alt)
Shift top (resumptive)
Shift top (promotion)
Shift topic (new)
Shift top (Introduced)
Continuing
9 %
8,7 %
23,4 %
17,8 %
12,5 %
9,4 %
49,6 %
7 %
14 %
Negative
Negative vs affirmative sentences
20 negative sentences out of 64 objects.
22 negative sentences sur 242 subjects.
objects
Affirmative
31,3
subjects
9
0
33
67
100
Results and discussion
Speakers
(19) AP: a. eux je les ai revus euh ben je les vois tous les jours [...]
ʻThey, I saw them again, well, I see them every dayʼ
b. à chaque fois le mec je lui dis «non» SHIFT (new) enfin tu vois je lui dis «non» gentiment,
ʻeach time the guy, I tell him «no», you know, I tell him «no», kindlyʼ
c. ils insistent pas et t'as vu ce jour-là quoi comment ça s'est passéʼ
ʻthey donʼt insist and youʼve seen, that day, what happenedʼ
d. ah putain il a une super stratégie quoi le mec tu lui dis «non» CON, il est venu avec un grand sourire
ʻoh god he has a great strategy, really; the guy, you tell him «no», he comes with a great smileʼ
e. « c'est pas grave euh c'est gratuit» et il commence et qu'est-ce tu fais? c'est soit tu sors de la voiture
ʻ«no worries, itʼs for free» and he starts and... what are you gonna do? you either go out of your carʼ
f. et le mec tu le prends SHIFT (resum) euh enfin qu'est-ce tu veux faire
and the guy, you catch him, well, what you wanna do?ʼ
g. je [veux] dire mais tu vas pas faire ça le mec il est sympa il est souriant SHIFT (resum)
ʻI mean, you are not going to do that, the guy, he is nice, he is smiling...ʼ
29
Results and discussion
Speakers
ClLD used as a ʻjollyʼ for a different construction?
(21) a. LJ : y a d'autres expériences où [...]
ʻthere are other experiments whereʼ
b. LJ : où les sujets devaient venir à des heures impossibles passer des tests [...] et tout [...]
ʻwhere subjects had to come at impossible times (and had) to pass tests and everything...ʼ
c. LJ : et les mecs ils avaient commencé et ils restaient
ʻand the guys, they had started, and they remainedʼ
30
Conclusions
❖
Different topic types are not always unambiguously identifiable in real data.
A continuum?
❖
No mapping between prosodic categories and pragmatic ones. Perhaps a tendency of
prosody to signal a link between the topic and another referent in discourse (an alternative
to it or its antecedent).
❖
Subjects as default topics;
Objects (more often) used as topics if alternatives are present, or when the verb alone
is focused (e.g. negation) (cf. Brunetti 2009b).
❖
Speakers may make a more or less extensive use of ClLDs, with consequences on the
(prosodic, pragmatic) properties of the construction itself.
31
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