Tone and Intonation in Vietnamese (TIV)

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Martine Grice
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 230852830

The project aims to investigate the forms and functions of intonation in Vietnamese, a language with a complex lexical tone system involving pitch and voice quality features. It has been claimed, precisely because of this complexity at the lexical level, that Vietnamese predominantly makes use of global, phrase-length intonation patterns. Our preliminary results, however, indicate that Vietnamese speakers also make use of local intonational tones, especially at the edges of intonation phrases. The project will provide an in-depth analysis of both global and local tonal phenomena and characterise the interaction between intonation and lexical tone. The degree and nature of this interaction is largely dependent on two factors: the function the intonation is expected to fulfill, and the identity of the lexical tone itself. Intonation can fully obscure a lexical tone if, for example, it is used in backchannel utterances, whereas the lexical tone can prevail (albeit to a differing degree) in other utterance types. The pitch of lexical tones with additional distinctive voice quality undergoes greater intonation-related modification than those that rely more on pitch for their identification. Speech materials will range from strictly controlled laboratory speech through task oriented dialogues to spontaneous conversations recorded over the telephone, so as to exert the degree of control required to probe the different factors determining the surface pitch contour, whilst at the same time keeping sight of the functions being expressed.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Canada
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Marc Brunelle