In spite of its crucial role in discourse segmentation, there is no consensus in the literature ... that should be defined in terms of two linguistic criteria: prosody and syntax (Degand and ... In line with prior research, we assume that discourse is ..... conversation, we observe shorter intonation units than in the two other genres.
W. Ramm & C. Fabricius-Hansen (eds.). 2008. Linearisation and Segmentation in Discourse. Multidisciplinary Approaches to Discourse 2008 (MAD 08), Feb 20-23 2008, Lysebu, Oslo. Oslo: Dept. of Literature, Area Studies and Europ. Languages, Univ. of Oslo
Minimal discourse units in spoken French: Uncovering genre-bound segmentation strategies Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon Université catholique de Louvain {liesbeth.degand, anne-catherine.simon}@uclouvain.be Abstract In spite of its crucial role in discourse segmentation, there is no consensus in the literature on what a minimal discourse unit (MDU) is and how it should be identified. Working with spoken data, we claim that the minimal discourse unit is a multi-dimensional unit that should be defined in terms of two linguistic criteria: prosody and syntax (Degand and Simon, 2005). In this paper, we explain which criteria are used to perform the prosodic and syntactic segmentation, and how these levels are mapped onto one another. We discuss a number of problems we encounter in doing so. We then present the results of a first study analyzing the segmentation strategies in three different genres, which leads to the conclusion that the type of MDUs may well be genre-bound.
1
Minimal discourse units
“Researchers are always pleased when the phenomena they are studying allow them to identify units. Units can be counted and their distributions analyzed, and they can provide handles on things that would otherwise be obscure.” (Chafe 1994:58). The same goes for Minimal Discourse Units (MDU) which we define as being “the smallest interactionally relevant complete linguistic unit, in a given context, that is constructed with syntactic and prosodic resources within its semantic, pragmatic, activity-type specific, and sequential […] context” (Selting 2000: 477). In line with prior research, we assume that discourse is (hierarchically) structured and that it is built up from smaller “building blocks” related to one another in a coherent way (Grosz & Sidner, 1986; Hobbs, 1979; Mann & Thompson, 1988; Polanyi, 1988; Roulet et al., 2001). How these MDUs should be defined is a much debated issue (Hannay & Kroon, 2005; Roulet, 2002; Steen, 2005). Our claim is that the minimal discourse unit is multi-dimensional and that it should be defined in terms of two linguistic criteria: prosody and syntax (Degand & Simon 2005). Different mapping strategies from the prosodic dimension onto the syntactic one exist (see Section 5). Thus, it is the outcome of this mapping that gives rise to the minimal discourse unit. Once this unit is defined, its role in the discourse structure can be investigated (comparison of different genres, internal structure, etc.), but also its interaction with processing. 2
Prosodic segmentation
The prosodic segmentation procedure aims at segmenting the speech flow into major intonation units (MIU)1. The theoretical ground for this segmentation is that MIUs seem to 1
Our MIU is roughly equivalent to the phonological unit termed as “Intonation Phrase”: “it is marked by a major continuation rise or a major final fall” and “by a large final lengthening” (Jun & Fougeron 2000: 220). In our definition however, an MIU is always followed by a pause. Our segmentation procedure relies on acoustic
Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon play an important functional role in the production and comprehension of language. They group together the information active in the speaker’s mind at its onset (Chafe 1994). This segmentation is semi-automatic and relies on the sequencer PROSOPROM (Goldman et al. 2007) which automatically detects prominences in the stylized and syllable-segmented speech signal2. The frontier degrees attached to the prominences in final-word position have to be interpreted. We distinguish approximately 10 contours corresponding to various levels of boundary and meaning, but we restrict our annotation to the major intonation boundaries, which we believe play a role in the setting up of MDUs. A prominent syllable in final position of a potential stress-group is considered a major intonation boundary if (1) it is followed by a 100 ms pause3 and (2) it carries one of three contours: rising, falling or level. In the French intonation system, a falling to low contour on the last syllable marks the strongest boundary (conclusive) whereas a rising contour marks a continuation. The so-called “level” contour is flat, lengthened and it often projects an integrated continuation of the previous construction. A few final prominent syllables do not fulfill these two requirements (100 ms pause and typical contour) and are nevertheless considered as MIU boundaries: - a particularly high rising contour (5 to 10 semi-tones higher in pitch than the surrounding syllables) is considered a MIU boundary even when not followed by a pause; - similarly, an extra-lengthened final syllable (2.5 as long as surrounding syllables) may produce a MIU boundary as well, even with no subsequent pause. silent pause
intonational contour
major intonation unit
audible pause (>100 ms)
falling, rising or level
minor intonation unit
no pause
slightly rising
Table 1. Summary of the boundary prosodic indices. Within this project, we do not aim to provide a detailed prosodic analysis of the internal structure of these segments, nor to the additional meaning of the boundary tones (emphasis, implication, list, etc.). Besides, we do not take into account the fact that MIU behave differently, depending on whether they end in a rising, a level or a falling tone. In other words, we restrict ourselves to the basic marking of Major Intonation Unit boundaries.
parameters and we attach equal importance to intonation contour, final lengthening and final pause, which is not the case for phonological intonation models. 2 When compared to human experts’ prominence detection, this automatic prominence detection has a positive score of 84%. The automatic procedure is as follows: Each syllable is compared to the two preceding and the following syllables. A syllable is detected as prominent if it is 1.5 longer or 2.5 semi-tones higher than surrounding syllables. For the purpose of speech segmentation, we rely on prominences attached to final-word syllable only. In French, primary accentuation is realised on the last syllable of a potential stress group (see Mertens 1993). Each final accent creates an “intonation group” (or Accentual Phrase, see Jun & Fougeron 2000). The degree of boundary attached to that final accent depends on the tone sequence used by the speaker and on the duration of the audible pause. 3 An appendix consists of a sequence of unaccented syllables, low in pitch, following a falling contour. An appendix directly follows the final accent, without any pause. The major intonation unit includes the appendix. It typically contextualizes discourse markers such as “quoi” that reinforce the finality of the contour, or post-focal elements.
32
Minimal discourse units in spoken French Figure 1 displays a prosogram (Mertens 2004) representing the perceived pitch on each syllable (thick black lines) and, among them, those syllables which are prominent (red lines4).
Figure 1: A prosogram represents perceived pitch (thick line) for each syllable, F0 (thin black line) and intensity (thin grey line). Duration is measured on the horizontal marking (tenths of seconds). In this 6 seconds long fragment, 7 syllables appear to be prominent. All of them being in a final stress-group position, they constitute potential MIU boundaries. Only the final syllable in anthologie fulfills the requirements for being a MIU boundary. The final step of the prosodic segmentation process is to include the results of this segmentation into a PRAAT tier (Boersma & Weenink 2007), which will thus appear in parallel to the grammatical tiers (see below). Note that by proceeding as such, we adopt a very linear approach to discourse, in contrast to more hierarchized approaches. We consequently do not pay attention to more “global” phenomena, such as intonation reset (Couper-Kuhlen 2001) or rhythmic organisation (Auer et al. 1999; Simon & Grobet 2005), although they undoubtedly play a role in discourse organization. 3
Grammatical segmentation
In parallel to this prosodic segmentation process, we segment the speech in grammatical units of two types: functional sequences (following Bilger & Campione 2002) and autonomous syntactic dependency units (following Blanche-Benveniste’s micro-syntax theory, 1990). A functional sequence is “une unité syntagmatique qui occupe une grande fonction syntaxique, comme celle de Verbe, Sujet, Objet, etc. La différence qu’il y a entre ces ‘séquences’ et les habituels ‘constituants’ se situe dans le fait qu’on ne cherche pas à rendre compte des différents éléments qui les constituent5 » (Bilger & Campione 2002: 119). Together these sequences can be grouped into major dependency units that comprise one (verbal, nominal, adverbial) head and its dependents. Adjuncts are semantically or pragmatically associated 4
Or thick grey lines in a black and white copy. “a syntagmatic unit that occupies a main syntactic function like Verb, Subject, Object, etc. The difference between these ‘sequences’ and habitual ‘constituents’ is that one does not try to account for the different elements that build it up.” 5
33
Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon with the whole dependency unit, but they do not syntactically depend on the governing element. In our annotation however, adjuncts are included in the dependency unit they are (semantically and pragmatically) associated with. The whole grammatical segmentation process is manual (based on a coding scheme that is being gradually incremented by the coders). We distinguish eight types of sequences, closely following Bilger & Campione’s proposal, with some minor adaptations: verb (SV), subject (SS), object (SO), (weak) dependency (SR), adjunct sequences (SA); parenthetic insertion (insert) and discourse marker6 (MD). Examples 1-3 illustrate different functional sequence configurations. (1)
(2) (3)
[dans la ville de Tyr SR] [l’effondrement de trois immeubles SS] [aurait fait SV] [au moins cinq victimes civiles SO] (IrtZA1r) ‘[in the town of Tyr] [the collapse of three buildings] [would have made][at least five civil victims]’ [je l’ai pas frappé SV] [tu vois MD] (blaJV1l) ‘[I didn’t hit him] [you see]’ [j’ai pensé SV] [à ce moment SR] [à l’expérience de Pascal euh quand un soir euh SO] [tandis qu’il méditait insert] [il a eu pff il est entré dans une sorte de de transe extatique SO-suite] (irtWL1r) ‘[I thought] [at that moment] [of the experience of Pascal when one night] [while he was meditating][he had he entered in a kind of ecstatic trance]’
The functional sequence annotation offers a number of advantages. It is fairly simple, not in need for complex syntactic annotation in contrast to traditional grammar, where each element needs a specific syntactic tag. For our purposes, the length of the thus obtained sequences seems compatible with main intonation patterns (even if complex sequences may sometimes result in very long sequences, see example 3). The linear logic of the annotation parallels our prosodic approach, which should facilitate the comparison between the different tiers7. The main reason for this functional sequencing is that it gives rise to functionally unified sequences of which it is worth while to investigate whether they receive their own prosodic contours (cf. supra), and whether the position they occupy within the dependency unit influences these prosodic patterns. As already mentioned, the annotation in functional sequences appears in one (linear) PRAAT tier. This tier is then duplicated twice: - one tier accommodates the structural pattern of each sequence (direct or specific, i.e. clefting, extraction, binarisation, etc.). This will, among other things, enable us to contrast the distribution of these structural patterns within the discourse, or between different genres; to link structural and intonation patterns; to analyze how thematic breaks are introduced in the discourse, etc. - the second tier accommodates the additions, mainly comments, the internal structure of the sequence (apposition, relative clause, list, …). Finally, the functional sequences are grouped in autonomous dependency units within one additional tier. We distinguish verbal dependency units, consisting of at least one Verb Sequence, from averbal dependency units containing only an Object sequence, next to elliptical and incomplete units. These dependency units can be very short, but also very long. They include discourse markers and adjuncts, even if they do not strictly hold a dependency relation with the head. Example 4 illustrates a combination of a complete dependency unit (URC), an elliptical (URE) and an averbal one (URA). 6 7
Lack of space prevents us from developing the details of each of the categories. Note that this strictly linear approach also leads to interrupted sequences, cf. example (3).
34
Minimal discourse units in spoken French (4)
4
[et ce sont ces mots-là qui me sont venus en tête URC] [et qui ont évoqué Pascal URE] [joie joie joie pleurs de joie URA] ‘[and it were these words that came to my mind][and which evoked Pascal][joy joy joy tears of joy]’ Mapping Prosody and Syntax
When confronting the two (prosodic and syntactic) segmentations, at least three strategies can be observed: (1) There is congruence between syntax and intonation in the sense that each dependency unit realizes one major intonation unit. As far as the adjuncts are concerned, they may be part of the intonation unit, or they may constitute one intonation unit by themselves; (2) Condensation occurs when the speaker groups two or more syntactic dependency units in one intonation unit; (3) Dislocation occurs when the speaker cuts one dependency unit into successive intonation units. Our overall working hypothesis is that a prototypical minimal discourse unit (unmarked) matches an autonomous dependency unit with a major intonation unit. This is not to say that this is the most frequent case, nor that it is the norm, but it makes it possible to analyze and compare the discourse structure of different genres, and to investigate whether this minimal discourse unit should be viewed as a purely linguistic construct, or whether it might receive any cognitive validation in discourse processing (cf. Chafe 1994). In this view, we expect that marked and unmarked MDUs fulfill different functional roles in the construction of the ongoing discourse, especially in terms of information management and activity type. With respect to information management, we hypothesize that dislocation is used for (re-)activating a discourse topic, condensation may on the contrary serve to indicate that a complex stretch of discourse is to be considered as one and only one information unit. As for the management of activity types, we expect that dislocation may be used for cueing a change in activity and the opening of a new sequence – when accompanied by rhythmic scansion (i.e., when successive accents are realized isochronically, see Auer et al. 1999), they may contextualize emphasis. In sum, we argue that there is no one-to-one constraint between syntactic organization and prosodic grouping. There are minimal constraints but speakers can freely choose how to group the syntactic constituents so as to fulfill their pragmatic goals. These strategies highly depend on the degree of formality (formal/informal, Chafe 1982) or “phonostyle” (Léon 1999), which is believed to be strongly linked to situation and discourse strategies (see the opposition between immediacy and communicative distance in Koch & Oesterreicher 2001) . To investigate these issues, we conducted a pilot study presented in Section 5. 5
Mapping strategies in three genres: a pilot study
We selected three different discourse types to quantify and analyze the three mapping strategies described so far: congruence, condensation and dislocation. The three communicative styles at stake are: read-aloud speech from radio news; semi-prepared speech from broadcasted interviews; informal unprepared speech from everyday conversations. For each of these, we coded and analyzed the first fifty-one Dependency Units (DU). Table 2 displays an overview of the quantitative data concerned. A number of observations are noteworthy. Not surprisingly, the less prepared the discourse, the shorter is the dependency unit, with long DUs in radio news (written-to-bespoken) and short DUs in spontaneous conversation. The number of functional sequences per
35
Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon DU follows the same pattern, with insignificant differences between the genres8. With respect to the number of major intonation units, however, the picture is the same. In spontaneous conversation, we observe shorter intonation units than in the two other genres. Thus, at first sight, the informal conversation sample stands out from the two other samples. Corpus description Syntactic annotation
Words (total) Duration (sec.) Dependency units Functional sequences Words/DU Func. sequences/DU
Radio News 870 252 51 128 16.75 2.5
Interview 617 193 51 107 11.07 2.09
Conversation 365 71.9 51 98 6.82 1.92
Prosodic Major intonation units 78 89 46 annotation Mean MIU duration 3.23 2.17 1.56 Table 2: Overview of the prosodic and syntactic data present in the three corpus samples Table 3 shows how the mapping strategies between Major Intonation Units and Dependency Units are distributed over the three genres under investigation. Clearly, the three genres show divergent mapping strategies (X² = 18.77 (df = 4), p < 0.001). These divergences are due to the unequal distribution of the dislocation and condensation strategies. The more formal genres (radio news and interview) very regularly have recourse to dislocation, which hardly ever occurs in conversation. The opposite is true for condensation, a pattern occurring in close to 50% of the cases in conversation, and a lot less frequently in the two other genres. Strikingly, the congruence strategy does not seem to be influenced by genre, displaying a homogeneous distribution of approximately one third of the cases in each of the three genres. Radio news
Interview
Conversation
Total
Congruence
17 (33.33%)
18 (35.29%)
18 (35.29%)
53 (34.6%)
Dislocation
20 (39.21%)
20 (39.21%)
3 (5.88%)
43 (28.1%)
Condensation
14 (27.45%)
12 (23.52%)
24 (47.05%)
50 (32.68%)
0
1 (1.96%)
6 (11.76%)
7 (4.57%)
51
51
51
153
Quit9
Table 3: Distribution of mapping strategies in three genres On the basis of these first results, we could conclude that these mappings are bound to the degree of formality and planning of each “genre”. Yet, a more interesting issue would be to consider whether these mappings correspond to genuine discourse strategies.
8
The reason is that functional sequences have a more complex internal structure (relative clauses, lists…) in prepared speech than in conversation. 9 “Quit” stands for Dependency Units that are abandoned in the course of their production (incomplete DUs).
36
Minimal discourse units in spoken French 5.1 5.1.1
Mapping as strategic choice One to one mapping
Let us first turn to the congruent cases, those of which we hypothesize that they form the default case (one dependency unit = one major intonation unit). Two explanations could account for this one-to-one mapping: a discourse strategic one and a cognitive overload one. The discourse strategic account predicts that major intonation units play an important functional role in the production and comprehension of language. They group together the information active in the speaker’s mind at its onset (Chafe 1994), without any specific “topicalisation” strategy. In other words, the speaker expresses this information in “one go” notwithstanding its length. Accordingly, the major intonation units should display varying lengths (in words). An alternative explanation is quantitative in nature. It relies on the speaker’s limited memory span (see e.g. Miller 1956, Cowan 2001). From this, one could predict that the major intonation units will display stable lengths. On the basis of the results in Table 4 displaying varying mean DU lengths in the one-toone configuration, we are inclined to opt for the first hypothesis: speakers pack (active) information into one intonation unit, so that the hearer receives this information as one idea. This hypothesis can be related to Chafe’s “one new idea constraint”, according to which “[c]onversational language appears subject to a constraint that limits an intonation unit to the expression of no more than one new idea” (Chafe 1994: 119). An example is given in (5), counting three major intonation units (/ or \) corresponding to three dependency units. (5)
c’est le titre d’un d’un assez long poème / puisqu’il fait cinquante pages dans le recueil / euh et Pascal ici c’est c’est Blaise \ [interview] ‘it’s the title of a fairly long poem / since it counts fifty pages in the book / ehm and Pascal here it’s it’s Blaise \’
# words in one-to-one Mean # words/DU in oneto-one Mean # words/DU overall
Radio
Interview
Conversation
252
150
123
14,82
8,33
6,83
16,75
11,06
6,82
Table 4: Mean length of Dependency Units in one-to-one mappings 5.1.2
Condensation
The condensation strategy consists in grouping more than one dependency unit into one major intonation unit, as illustrated in (6). (6)
on s’est empoignés on s’est poussés puis je dis dégage d’ici \ [conversation] ‘we grabbed at one another we pushed and then I say get out of here \’
We believe that the underlying discourse strategy of such condensation cases is one of information packaging too: a complex stretch of discourse is to be considered as one and only one (strategic) information unit, and is thus delivered in one go following the (default) mode of the one idea – one intonation unit strategy. As already mentioned, this is the predominant 37
Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon strategy in the conversation sample. It remains to be investigated whether this condensation strategy could be considered as a (prosodic) turn-holding device (Selting 2000). 5.1.3
Dislocation
The dislocation strategy consists in segmenting one dependency unit into two or more major intonation units. We distinguish three main reasons for doing so. The first one has again to do with information management: the dependency unit is segmented because it contains more than one new idea. In (7) for instance, the speaker prefers to deliver her message in two separated intonation units corresponding to two different information units. (7)
et il a conservé ce billet / dans la doublure de son vêtement / [interview] ‘and he has kept this note / in the lining of his cloth /’
The second reason to segment a dependency unit has to do with information focus. In (8) the dislocated segment is emphasized, an emphasis which is reinforced syntactically by repetition. (8)
si vous pouvez / toucher au moins toucher [interview] ‘if you can / touch at least touch’
Finally, dislocation can also be due to delivery problems in the form of hesitations as in (9). In this case, a level contour is mostly used and repetition of grammatical words occurs. (9)
je ne pense pas corriger autour de moi les / les prononciations réputées vicieuses de / de ceux qui m' entourent [interview] ‘I don’t think (that I) correct around me the / the well-known vicious pronunciations of / of those around me’
5.2
Towards defining a minimal discourse unit
In view of the results of this study, we confirm that the speaker may make use of three “makeup” strategies when delivering his/her message. These strategies influence the nature of the minimal discourse unit at stake. The one-to-one mapping is the default case: It is a strategic (information) unit that contains one conceptual unit. Up to now, we hypothesise that one dependency (syntactic) unit corresponds with one conceptual (semantic) unit, and that the default one-to-one strategy consists of presenting a single “idea” in one communicative step10. The condensation mapping strategy occurs primarily in conversational data. We hypothesize that prosody overruns (dependency) syntax to constitute one strategic MDU, containing two (sometimes more) dependency units and several conceptual units. It forms an autonomous communicative step. The dislocation mapping strategy occurs very frequently in the radio and interview data. We believe that (dependency) syntax overrules prosody to build a single MDU in the case of hesitation and in the case of emphasis. Those cases go hand in hand with specific prosodic configurations11 and they illustrate the primacy of syntax over prosody in the interpretation of 10
We know this is a simplistic view in the sense that semantic units are is not strictly parallel to syntactic dependency units, but we did not develop a semantic annotation procedure for spoken speech. 11 Extra-lengthening and level contour for hesitation; isochronous beat placement and expanded pitch range for emphasis.
38
Minimal discourse units in spoken French a single MDU. On the other hand, when dislocation is the result of an information management strategy, our hypothesis is that prosody overrules syntax. In the latter case, the speaker explicitly segments the syntactic dependency units into two (or more) information units (mapped onto intonation units) that play a part in the discourse structure building. 6
Conclusion
We have considered radio-news, interview and conversation as three different “genres” situated on a continuum between formality and informality (i.e. communicative distance / proximity). Speech production conditions strongly differ: while radio-news consists of readaloud speech, interview and even more spontaneous conversation, are non-scripted speech. They also partly differ in the use speakers make of prosodic vs. syntactic devices for making up minimal discourse units. The unmarked strategy (one dependency unit corresponding to one major intonation unit) approximately covers 33% of the cases in the three genres, but such “typical” MDUs strongly differ in size, being longer and more complex in the read-aloud situation, and shorter in conversational style. The dislocation strategy is privileged by speakers in the more formal styles (radio-news and interview). According to the kind of dislocation (hesitation or emphasis vs. information management), syntax or prosody may have the primacy in defining the MDU. The distribution of each type of dislocation within the three genres is still to be investigated, and the same holds for their study in relation to topic management. Those aspects require a more qualitative and a sequential analysis. Finally, a next step must be taken in investigating whether our methodology allows making a distinction between Chafe’s “substantive” vs. “regulative” discourse units, the latter ones being implied in the management of discourse structure and progression, but not in the construction of a coherent conceptual interpretation. References Auer, P., E. Couper-Kuhlen & F. Müller. 1999. Language in Time. The Rhythm and Tempo of Spoken Interaction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bilger, M. & Campione, E. 2002. Propositions pour un étiquetage en ‘séquences fonctionnelles’. Recherches sur le français parlé 17, 117-136. Boersma, Paul & David Weenink. 2007. Praat: doing phonetics by computer (Version 4.6.09) [Computer program]. Retrieved June 24, 2007, from http://www.praat.org/ Blanche-Benveniste, C. et al. 1990. Le français parlé : études grammaticales. Paris : Éditions du CNRS. Chafe, W. 1982. Integration and Involvement in Speaking, Writing and Oral Literature. In D. Tannen (ed.), Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, Norwood NJ, Ablex. 35-53. Chafe, W. (1994). Discourse, Consciousness, and Time. The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago & London: The University of Chicago Press. Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2001). Interactional prosody: high onsets in reason-for-the-call turns. Language in Society 30. 29-53. Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 24, 87-185
39
Liesbeth Degand & Anne Catherine Simon Degand, L. & Simon, A.C. 2005. Minimal Discourse Units: Can we define them, and why should we? In M. Aurnague et al.(eds), Proceedings of SEM-05. Connectors, discourse framing and discourse structure: from corpus-based and experimental analyses to discourse theories, Biarritz, 14-15 November 2005. 65-74. Eynde, Karel van den & Piet Mertens. 2003. La valence: l' approche pronominale et son application au lexique verbal. Journal of French Language Studies 13. 63-104. Goldman, J. Ph., M. Avanzi, A.C. Simon, A. Lacheret & A. Auchlin. 2007. A methodology for the automatic detection of perceived prominent syllables in spoken French. Proceedings of Interspeech 2007, August 20-23, 2007. 98-101. Grosz, B. J., & C.L. Sidner. 1986. Attention, intentions, and the structure of discourse. Computational Linguistics 12. 175-204. Francard, M., G. Geron & R. Wilmet. 2002. La banque de données VALIBEL : des ressources textuelles orales pour l' étude du français en Wallonie et à Bruxelles. In C. D. Pusch & W. Raible (eds.), Romance Corpus Linguistics - Corpora and Spoken Language. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. 71-80. Hannay, M. & C. Kroon. 2005. Acts and the relationship between discourse and grammar. Functions of Language12. 87-124. Hermes, D.J. 2006. Stylization of Pitch Contours. In S. Sudhoff et al. (eds.), Methods in Empirical Prosody Research. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter. 29-61. Jun, S. & C. Fougeron. 2000. A Phonological Model of French Intonation. In A. Botinis (ed.), Intonation: Analysis, Modelling and Technology. Amsterdam: Kluwer. Lacheret-Dujour A. 2003. La prosodie des circonstants en français parlé. Paris, Louvain: Peeters. Koch, P. & W. Oesterrreicher. 2001. Langage oral et langage écrit. In G. Holthus (ed.), Lexikon der Romanistischen Linguistik, vol. 1-2, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 584-627. Lacheret, A. & B. Victorri. 2002. La période intonative comme unité d’analyse pour l’étude du français parlé: modélisation prosodique et enjeux linguistiques. Verbum XXIV(1-2). 55-72. Léon, P. 1992. Précis de phonostylistique. Paris: Nathan. Mann, W. C., & Thompson, S. A. 1988. Rhetorical structure theory: Toward a functional theory of text organization. Text 8. 243-281. Mertens, P. 1993. Intonational grouping, boundaries and syntactic structure in French. In D. House & P. Touati (ed.), Proc. ESCA Workshop on Prosody, September 27-29, 1993. Lund (S) Working Papers 41 (Lund Univ., Dept. of Linguistics). 156-159 Mertens, P. 2004. Le prosogramme: une transcription semi-automatique de la prosodie. Cahiers de l' Institut de Linguistique de Louvain 30(1-3). 7-25. Mettouchi, A., S. Izre' el & A. Lacheret-Dujour. 2007. Intonation Units in Kabyle and Hebrew; perception, acoustic cues and informational structure. Poster presentation at IPRA 2007. Miller, G. A. 1956. The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review 63. 81-97. Polanyi, L. 1988. A formal model of the structure of discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 12. 601-638. Roulet, E. 2002. Le problème de la définition des unités à la frontière entre le syntaxique et le textuel. Verbum XXIV(1-2). 161-178. Roulet, E., L. Filliettaz & A. Grobet in collaboration with M. Burger. 2001. Un modèle et un instrument d’analyse de l’organisation du discours. Bern: Peter Lang. Selting, M. 2000. The construction of units in conversational talk. Language in Society 29. 477-517. 40
Minimal discourse units in spoken French Simon, A. C. & L. Degand. 2007. Prosodic grouping: condensing vs. breaking up strategies in the construction of minimal discourse units in spoken French. Spoken presentation at IPRA 2007 (Panel on Prosody and Pragmatics in Spoken Language Corpora). Steen, G.J. 2005. Basic discourse acts: Towards a psychological theory of discourse segmentation. In F. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibá ez & M. Sandra Pe a Cervel (eds.), Cognitive linguistics: Internal dynamics and interdisciplinary interaction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 283-312.
41
