From information structure to intonation

Abstract

The paper describes an interface between generator and synthesizer of the German language concept-to-speech system VieCtoS. It discusses phenomena in German intonation that depend on the interaction between grammatical dependencies (projection of information structure into syntax) and prosodic context (performance-related modifications to intonation patterns).Phonological processing in our system comprises segmental as well as suprasegmental dimensions such as syllabification, modification of word stress positions, and a symbolic encoding of intonation. Phonological phenomena often touch upon more than one of these dimensions, so that mutual accessibility of the data structures on each dimension had to be ensured.We present a linear representation of the multidimensional phonological data based on a straightforward linearization convention, which suffices to bring this conceptually multilinear data set under the scope of the well-known processing techniques for two-level morphology.