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Preservation of lexical tones in singing in a tone language

Karlsson, Anastasia LU ; Lundström, Håkan LU and Svantesson, Jan-Olof LU (2014) Annual Conference of International Speech Communication Association (INTERSPEECH) 2014 p.1357-1360
Abstract
Lexical tones are important for expressing meaning and usually have high priority in tone languages. This can create conflicts with sentence intonation in spoken language and with melodic templates in singing since all of these are transmitted by pitch. The main question in this investigation is whether a language (in our case the Mon-Khmer language Kammu) with a simple two-tone system uses similar strategies for preserving lexical tones in singing and speech. We investigate the realization of lexical tones in a singing genre which can be described as recitation based on a partly predefined, though still flexible, melodic template. The contrast between High and Low tone is preserved, and is realized mainly at the beginning of the vowel.... (More)
Lexical tones are important for expressing meaning and usually have high priority in tone languages. This can create conflicts with sentence intonation in spoken language and with melodic templates in singing since all of these are transmitted by pitch. The main question in this investigation is whether a language (in our case the Mon-Khmer language Kammu) with a simple two-tone system uses similar strategies for preserving lexical tones in singing and speech. We investigate the realization of lexical tones in a singing genre which can be described as recitation based on a partly predefined, though still flexible, melodic template. The contrast between High and Low tone is preserved, and is realized mainly at the beginning of the vowel. Apparently, the rest of the syllable rhyme serves either for strengthening the lexical contrast or for melodic purposes. Syllables are often reduplicated in singing, and the reduplicant ignores lexical tones. The preservation of lexical tones in Kammu singing, and their early timing close to the vowel onset, is very similar to what we have found for speech. (Less)
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author
; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to conference
publication status
published
subject
pages
4 pages
conference name
Annual Conference of International Speech Communication Association (INTERSPEECH) 2014
conference location
Singapore
conference dates
2014-09-14 - 2014-09-18
external identifiers
  • scopus:84910072020
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
http://www.interspeech2014.org/public.php?page=home.html The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Linguistics and Phonetics (015010003), Malmö Academy of Music (014005009)
id
ebc51460-036c-4809-a87c-54f6bc1bf2f6 (old id 4694378)
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 14:23:23
date last changed
2023-12-06 02:16:09
@misc{ebc51460-036c-4809-a87c-54f6bc1bf2f6,
  abstract     = {{Lexical tones are important for expressing meaning and usually have high priority in tone languages. This can create conflicts with sentence intonation in spoken language and with melodic templates in singing since all of these are transmitted by pitch. The main question in this investigation is whether a language (in our case the Mon-Khmer language Kammu) with a simple two-tone system uses similar strategies for preserving lexical tones in singing and speech. We investigate the realization of lexical tones in a singing genre which can be described as recitation based on a partly predefined, though still flexible, melodic template. The contrast between High and Low tone is preserved, and is realized mainly at the beginning of the vowel. Apparently, the rest of the syllable rhyme serves either for strengthening the lexical contrast or for melodic purposes. Syllables are often reduplicated in singing, and the reduplicant ignores lexical tones. The preservation of lexical tones in Kammu singing, and their early timing close to the vowel onset, is very similar to what we have found for speech.}},
  author       = {{Karlsson, Anastasia and Lundström, Håkan and Svantesson, Jan-Olof}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{1357--1360}},
  title        = {{Preservation of lexical tones in singing in a tone language}},
  year         = {{2014}},
}