A Study Of Continuant Tones In Broadcast News Materials

Based on an abundance of broadcast news material,this thesis studies the tones of continuant utterances.A total of 3695 intonation groups are collected and sorted out,from which 11575 pieces of intonation phrases are labeled.Intonation group and intonation phrase are the two prosodic units of continuant utterances on a relatively macroscopic level.This thesis discusses the tones performances of intonation groups and intonation phrases,through several aspects such as length,pitch range,pitch position,tones pattern and the reasons of these performances.There is a certain correlation between the length and the pitch range of intonation groups and phrases.While the length of prosody units increases,the range increases with it.However,that correlation is not very strong.A variance analysis on the intonation phrases is also carried out.A very significant correlation exists between the position of the intonation phrase and its tones performance.This study also comes out with a pitch pattern of intonation phrases.In short sentences,the high pitch lines go up at the beginnings,reach the tops in the middle and then go down.While longer sentences have an apparent turning in the middle.This is due to the reset of the pitches,and they are caused by breathing resets.The low pitch lines of intonation groups decline down gradually towards the end.