Accenting and Information StatusInformation StatusToday: Acent and Given/NewA Simple DefinitionRole in Speech TechnologiesSlide 6Prince ’81: A More Complex ModelSlide 8Prince ’92: A Still More Complex ModelSlide 10Given/New and Pitch AccentBrown ‘83: Accent Status and Subclasses of Given/NewSlide 13Boston Directions Corpus (Hirschberg & Nakatani ’96)Hearer and Discourse Given/New LabelingSlide 18Does Given/New Status Predict Deaccenting?And….Bard’99: Givenness, deaccenting and intelligibilitySlide 21What else is going on?Experimental DesignSlide 24Slide 25Slide 26Slide 27Slide 28Slide 29Experimental ConditionsProsodic AnalysisGrammatical Role/Surface Position Accenting ‘Score’FindingsGiven/New Isn’t Just About Discourse EntitiesHow can we determine automatically whether a discourse entity is given or new?What else can we do?How important is it to accent given/new items appropriately?Intonational cues in on-line processingDahan et al. (2002)Slide 41Accent, Given/New, and Grammatical FunctionSlide 43Next Class01/13/19 1Accenting and Information StatusJulia HirschbergCS 470601/13/19 2Information Status•Topic/comment, theme/rhemeThe orangutan we wanted to buy escaped from the pet store.•Focus of attentionI only bought candy for that orangutan.•Given/newI only bought candy for that orangutan. I would never buy an ape drugs!•All commonly signaled in human speech by intonation01/13/19 3Today: Acent and Given/New•Motivation in speech technology•Models of Given/New•Experiments on Given/New and pitch accent•Possible models of intonation wrt given/new entities•How might we identify given/new information automatically?•How should we produce given/new information appropriately?•Why is this important?01/13/19 4A Simple Definition•Given: Recoverable from some form of context or, what a Speaker believes to be in a Hearer’s consciousness•New: Not recoverable from context or, what a Speaker believes is not in a Hearer’s consciousness01/13/19 5Role in Speech Technologies•TTS: Natural production–Given information is often deaccented –New information is usually accented•ASR: Improved recognition–Given information may already have been recognized earlier–New information may be important cue to topic shift•Summarization: Improved precision–Given information less likely to be included in a summary; new information more likely01/13/19 6•Spoken Dialogue Systems: Grounding–Critical for system to convey what is given and what is new to facilitate Hearer comprehension01/13/19 7Prince ’81: A More Complex Model•Speaker (S) and Hearer (H), in a discourse, construct a discourse model–Includes discourse entities, attributes, and links between entities–Discourse entities: individuals, classes, exemplars, substances, concepts (NPs)•Entities when first introduced are new–Brand-new (H must create a new entity)My dog bit a rhinoceros this morning.01/13/19 8–Unused (H already knows of this entity)The sun came out this morning.•Evoked entities are old, or ‘given’ -- already in the discourse–Explicitly evoked (in text or speech)The rhinoceros was wearing suspenders. Rather unusual for a rhino.–Situationally evokedWatch out for the snake!•Inferables are also old, or ‘given’I bought a new car. The gear shift is a bit tricky.01/13/19 9Prince ’92: A Still More Complex Model•Hearer-centric information status:–Given: what S believes H has in his/her consciousness–New: what S believes H does not have in his/her consciousness•But discourse entities may also be given and new wrt the current discourse–Discourse-old: already evoked in the discourse–Discourse-new: not evoked01/13/19 10 The stars are very bright tonight (Hearer-given; Discourse-new)When I see stars this bright, I think of my vacations in the mountains. (Hearer-given; Discourse-given)My friend Buddy and I would sneak out late at night. (Hearer-new; Discourse-new)I said, “My friend BUDDY…” (Hearer-new; Discourse-given)01/13/19 11Given/New and Pitch Accent•New information is often accented and given information is often deaccented (Halliday ‘67, Brown ‘83, Terken ‘84) –But there are many exceptions: a simple TTS rule: accent ‘new’ and deaccent ‘given’ will make 25-30% errors–How can we reduce these errors, to produce human-like intonation?01/13/19 12Brown ‘83: Accent Status and Subclasses of Given/New•Speech elicitation in laboratory–12 Scottish-English undergrads–A describes a diagram for B to draw, which B cannot seeDraw a black triangle.Draw a circle in the middle.Draw a blue triangle next to the black one with a line from the top angle to the bottom.•Analysis: based on Prince ‘81 categories with modifications01/13/19 13–Brand-new (a triangle), given:inferrable (middle, angle), given:contextually evoked (the page), given:‘textually’ evoked (divided into current topic vs. earlier mention)–Accent status of all entity-referring NPs•Results:–Brand-new information accented (87%)•Note: new entity/old expression issue–Given: contextually evoked information deaccented (98%)–Given: ’textually’ evoked deaccented (current topic 100%; earlier: 96%)–Given: inferable information accented (79%)01/13/19 14Boston Directions Corpus (Hirschberg & Nakatani ’96)•Experimental Design•12 speakers: 4 used•Spontaneous and read versions of 9 direction-giving tasks (monologues)•Corpus: 50m read; 67m spon•Labeling–Prosodic: ToBI intonational labeling–Given/new (Prince ’92), grammatical function, p.o.s.,…01/13/19 17Hearer and Discourse Given/New Labelingfirstenter the Harvard Square T stopand buy a tokenthenproceed to get on theinboundumRed Lineuh subwayandtake the subwayfrom Harvard Squareto Central Squareand then to Kendall Squarethen get off the T01/13/19 18Hearer and Discourse Given/New Labelingfirstenter <HG/DN the Harvard Square T stop>and buy <HI/DN a token>thenproceed to get on <HI/DN theinboundumRed Lineuh subway>andtake <HG/DG the subway>from <HG/DG Harvard Square>to <HG/DN Central Square>and then to <HG/DN Kendall Square>then get off <HG/DG the T>01/13/19 19Does Given/New Status Predict Deaccenting?NPa HG HI HN DG DNDeaccented 37.1% 53.9% 26.2% 43.3% 38.8%Total 1009 406 130 596 950HG: Hearer Given HI: Hearer Inferable HN: Hearer New DG: Discourse Given DN: Discourse New39.4% of (H or D) Given items deaccented…36.9% of (H or D) New Items are deaccented…01/13/19