• name: ToBI (Tone Layer) Annotation

• coding purpose: phonological annotation of the intonation curve, distinguishing pitch accents, phrase accents and boundary tones, according to the ToBI scheme

• coding level: Prosody

• data sources: spoken corpora (speech files, f0 files, orthographic transcription, phonetic transcription)

• module references: orthographic transcription module, phonetic transcription module, f0 coding module

• description:  In our XML adaptation of ToBI, four elements have been defined:

• <tobitone>, for the tones, distinguished according to their function as pitch accents, phrase accents or boundary tones and labeled according to a classification of their linguistically admissible types
• <target>, to mark peak location when it occurs outside the scope of the accented syllable
• <f0range>, to mark the highest f0 value in the curve
• <repair>, to mark the restart of the intonation contour after a disfluency


The four elements are not hierarchically ordered. All may refer to the f0 curve, while only the two accessory element <target> and <f0range> are necessarily linked to <f0>. The <tobitone> and <repair> elements can be linked to prosodic units and/or to phonetic descriptions of intonation, rather than raw f0.

• example: The following example shows the ToBI annotation of the English utterance "Show me the cheapest fare from Philadelphia to Dallas excluding restriction VU slash one" (obtained from the TOBI-TRAINING material), using the elements <tobitone> and <repair>.

<tobitone id="tbtn_001" type="H*" class="pitaccent" href="word.xml# id(wrd_001)" start="2052" end="2052"/>

repair.xml

<repair id="rpr_001" type="%r" start="4149" end="4149"/>
 
 

• markup declaration:

The set of symbols defined for the attribute `type' includes the allowable combination of pitch accents, phrase accents, boundary tones and/or uncertainty symbols, as defined in the ToBI guidelines. The value for the attribute 'type' should be consistent with the attribute 'class', according to the semantics of the different labels described in the tables in 6.2.1.

ELEMENT <f0range>
ATTRIBUTES:
id [ASCII]
type HiF0
href <f0> or
<closecopy> or
<momel> or
<intone>
start [FLOAT]
end [FLOAT]
 

ELEMENT <repair>
ATTRIBUTES:
id [ASCII]
type %r
href <f0> or
<closecopy> or
<momel> or
<intone> or
<syllable>
start [FLOAT]
end [FLOAT]
 

• coding procedure: Different procedures may be followed to obtain a ToBI annotation of intonation. A possible procedure, assuming that the <f0> and <syllable> elements are available, is:
• open the following synchronized windows: signal window, <f0> (with its graphical display), <word>, <syllable> by listening to the signal and inspecting the f0 curve and the aligned words and syllables, find out pitch accents, phrase boundaries, boundary tones and repairs (according to ToBI definitions and guidelines)
• for each detected intonation event, select the <syllable> on which it occurs, create the corresponding (linked) <tobitone> or <repair> element and assign it the proper class attribute; time values will be inherited from <syllable> (or, if desired, can be set explicitly in correspondence of the f0 peak or valley)
• in case the peak or valley of the event is outside the syllable, choose its exact <f0> point and create the linked <target> element
• for each phrase, find out its f0 maximum, select its <f0> point and create the linked <f0range> element

• creation notes:
• Authors: Silvia Quazza, Juan María Garrido
• Version: 1., October 1999
• Comments: none
• Literature: