Peak alignment in L2 intonation

Monika Zięba-Plebankiewicz
2007

1. Introduction
Various factors contributing to the perceived foreign
accent on both segmental and suprasegmental levels have
been thoroughly investigated, however, the influence of
tonal alignment has not received much attention. This
paper aims to bridge the gap between the existing studies
of peak alignment in English and Polish prosodic systems,
and the second language acquisition theory.
Tonal alignment is defined as “the temporal
synchronization of tones with some specific segments or
prosodic locations (such as syllable onset, syllable offset,
or rhyme onset) and may be related to phonological and/or
phonetic factors” (Oliver – Andreeva 2005), and the
position of f0 peak is the distinctive feature of pitch
accents (Demenko et al. 2007). The timing of f0 peaks is
influenced by the following factors: speech tempo,
duration of segments in the accented syllable, distance in
syllables from the accent to the word boundary and the
next stressed syllable, focal structure and sentence mode
(Oliver – Andreeva 2005). Thus its exact location is to a
large extent language-specific and may contribute to the
perceived foreign accent in the speech of L2 learners.
A question arises whether L2 peak alignment can be
learned: the locations of f0 peaks in L1 and L2 differ in the
range of milliseconds and, as it is assumed that learners
can acquire categorical patterns of L2 features, the
differences may be too subtle to form contrasting
perceptual categories (cf. Flege’s Speech Learning Model,
1995).

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1.1. Tonal alignment in Polish and English

According to study by Oliver and Andreeva (2005), in

Polish peak timing ranges between approximately 19.1% -
15.7% of the duration of the accented syllable. The target
proved to be sensitive to syllable onset and offset, which
influenced the timing. Moreover, the peak could be
delayed if the tempo of speech was slower but with
increasing speech tempo peaks are aligned earlier. The
study included the analysis of only two Polish speakers,
therefore any generalizations should be cautious.
A more detailed large-scale study of Polish peak
alignment was offered by Demenko et al. (2007), which
revealed that the peak timing tends to occur in the
following parts of the accented syllable:
 Syllables with no onset: 34.22%
 Voiced onset: 49.53%
 Voiceless onset: 59.91%
Peak alignment in English, according to Grabe (1998),
tends to be reached approximately within the middle of the
accented syllable, at around 66% of overall syllable
duration, that is later than in Polish. The study by Chen
(2003) proved that frequency influenced tonal timing, as
higher peaks (of greater f0) are reached later than lower
peaks.
In both languages the type of the onset and coda
influences tonal timing, i.e. “peaks occur earlier in the
syllable if there is a sonorant in the onset and later if there
is a sonorant in the coda” (Demenko et al. 2007: 72).

2. Experiment
The aim of the experiment was to test whether L2
peak alignment could be acquired. It was assumed that the
influence of L1 prosody is strong even in less advanced
learners of English, whereas L1-specific peak alignment
will be overcome by the more advanced participants. The

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study concentrated on tonal alignment of nuclear falling
contours in semi-spontaneous speech, where the
participants’ L1 was Polish and L2 English.

2.1. Procedure

Speech material included two sets of texts, a dialogue

which had been previously memorized by the subjects and
later acted out, and a BBC weather forecast to be read
aloud. The dialogue ensured a semi-spontaneous,
conversational speaking style, which was considered as
likely to elicit typically British intonation patterns and
more lively, more emotional speech. The weather forecast
text provided a different context, more likely to produce a
more formal speech style. The subjects’ performance was
recorded and analyzed with the use of Praat (Boersma –
Weenink 2002). The analyzed data included 400 samples
(10 intonational phrases (IP) per each group).
The participants were divided into two groups: group
A consisted of 10 pre-FC Polish learners of English and
group B including 10 advanced Polish learners of English
after a 4-semester phonetic training. A native speaker of
British English performing the same texts was recorded
separately to serve as a model for comparison.
From the recorded samples f0 contours were extracted
and smoothed. F0 peaks were specified as the absolute f0
maximum coinciding with the maximum value of intensity
and sound amplitude within the accented syllable of a
given intonational phrase. The f0 contours were
superimposed on the spectrogram of the syllable which
helped to distinguish the boundaries of the accented vowel.
The beginning and end of the vowel became the
reference point for measuring peak location to avoid
possible confusion caused by the varying number of
segments in the syllable onset and offset. Therefore the
exact peak location was established on the basis of the
absolute distance in time from the vowel initial boundary

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to the F0 peak and from the F0 peak to the vowel end
boundary (Figure 1).

Figure 1. The left edge of the vowel (the upper image) and the
tonal peak (the lower image)

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 Additionally, a collection of Polish utterances was
recorded, against which the speech of the Polish subjects
could be compared in order to estimate the degree of
acquisition of L2 peak alignment. The recordings included
20 semi-spontaneous utterances performed by two Polish
speakers.

2.2. Results

The results of the analysis of the 20 Polish samples

were consistent with the findings of Demenko et al. (2007)
and Olivier – Andreeva (2005): mean peak timing equalled
43% (0.03315 sec. from the beginning of the vowel to f0
peak, where SD = 0.011089).

Figure 2. Example of the peak maximum in a Polish utterance

The comparison of the performance of the less

advanced, pre-FCE level group A, the advanced group B

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and the native speaker revealed that Polish peaks in the
performance of both groups were earlier than English
peaks (example IP in Figures 3, 4 and 5).

Figure 3. Visual representation of a native speaker’s IP “Green

one” where the nuclear syllable is “green”

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Figure 4. Visual representation of a Group A speaker’s IP
“Green one” where the nuclear syllable is “green”

Figure 5. Visual representation of a Group B speaker’s IP

“Green one” where the nuclear syllable is “green”

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 The comparison of the performance of the subjects
from Group A with the speech of the native speaker
supported the assumption that peak timing in the less
advanced group would be the most L1-like regardless of
the type of syllable onset. In the following Figures 6-9 the
first ten bars represent the mean value of peak timing for
the ten Polish subjects, while the last bar depicts the mean
peak timing of the native speaker.

Figure 6. Group A’s mean peak timing for voiceless onsets

Figure 7. Group B’s mean peak timing for voiceless onsets

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 Voiceless onsets caused peak maxima to occur later
than in syllables with voiced beginnings not only in the
speech of Polish subjects but also the native speaker.
However, the timing of the Polish participants did not
reach the mean values of the native speaker’s. Similar
differences between Polish subjects and the English
speaker were observed in syllables with voiced onsets
(Figures 8-9).

Figure 8. Group A’s mean peak timing for voiced onsets

Figure 9. Group B’s mean peak timing for voiced onsets

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 In order to examine whether the differences in peak
alignment were significant, a set of t-tests for independent
samples were conducted. First, the overall values of the
mean distance of the pitch maximum from the beginning
of the syllable calculated for Group A was compared with
the values established for Group B. Subsequently, t-tests to
compare the timing of Group A with the timing of the
native speaker, and the timing of Group B with the native
speaker were applied (Table 1).

Mean SD t df- p
t
Group A 0.036367 0.0238 -3.79 396 0.0002
Group B 0.045175 0.0225
Group A 0.036367 0.0238 -5.78 35 0
NS 0.0876 0.0316
Group B 0.045175 0.0225 -4.88 34 0
NS 0.0876 0.0316
Group A 0.036367 0.0238 0.55 26 0.5879
Polish 0.03315 0.0111
Group B 0.045175 0.0226 2.14 27 0.0403
Polish 0.03315 0.0111

Table 1. T-test for independent samples showing the difference in

the performance between the means of peak timing of group A,
group B, the native speaker and L1

The t-test revealed that at the .05 level Group B’s

mean f0 peak was reached significantly later than group
A’s peak. On the other hand, the native speaker’s peak
timing was significantly later than the timing of both group
A and group B at the .05 level.
In comparison with their L1, in group A’s
performance the difference between Polish peak timing
and their interlanguage timing was not significant (t =
0.55). However, the difference between group B’s

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interlanguage peak timing and L1 timing proved to be
significant at the .05 level (t = 2.14).

3. Conclusions
The experiment confirmed the claim that the less
advanced speakers did not acquire target peak alignment
and transferred the L1 timing into their interlanguage.
However, even though the more advanced Group B
performed significantly better than their colleagues, and
L1 transfer was less detectable in their speech, their peak
timing was not L2-like. More progress could be expected
if one takes into consideration the amount of time which
the participants devoted to formal training in English
phonetics. Moreover, every normally hearing language
user is able to discriminate between fine differences in f0
height, therefore one would not expect problems with the
fine differences in tonal timing.
The reason for the apparent lack of success is the
diverse nature of peak height and peak timing. Chen’s
(2003) study revealed that while peak height is perceived
in terms of categorical contrasts. For instance, while it is
true that in the falling intonational contour the steepness of
the fall forms a continuum of various degrees of pitch
height, ranging from a high fall to a low fall, language
users discriminate between the meaningful categories of
“emphatic high fall”, “neutral fall” and “unusual-
occurrence” low fall.
Peak alignment, on the other hand, also forms a
continuum, however, the differences in timing are
determined by various phonetic and prosodic features, and
no categories of binary meaning differences can be
distinguished (Chen 2003). As a consequence, since peak
timing is not categorical and does not contribute to the
meaning of the utterance, it is not salient enough and
learners fail to acquire this element of L2 prosody.

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 Nevertheless, the advanced participants of the present
experiment managed to perform better than the less
advanced learners. Their partial success may be attributed
to their greater competence in other aspects of L2
phonology, such as the long-short vowel distinction and
rhythm, which the less advanced group had not acquire
yet. Therefore, since learners more readily attend to vowel
quality rather than to temporal aspects of speech, one can
try to compensate for the non-native peak alignment
through the extensive practice in English vowel length and
rhythmic pattern.
The above study sheds light on a small aspect of the
acquisition of English as the second/foreign language.
However, further research is needed to provide more
solutions for the compensation for the unsuccessful
acquisition of L2 peak timing.

References
Chen, Aoju. 2003. “Reaction time as an indicator of
discrete intonational contrasts in English.” Eurospeech
2003: Geneva.

Demenko, Grażyna – Agnieszka Wagner – Matthias Jilka

– Bernd Möbius. 2007. “Comparative investigation of peak
alignment in Polish and German Unit Selection Corpora.”
6th ISCA Workshop on Speech Synthesis, Bonn, Germany,
August 22-23 2007.

Flege, J.E. 1995. Second language speech learning:

Theory, findings and problems. In Strange, W. (ed.)
Speech perception and linguistic experience: Issues in
cross-language speech research, 233-277. Timonium MD:
York Press.

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Grabe, Esther. 1998. Comparative intonational phonology:
English and German. MPI Series in Psycholinguistics 7,
Wageningen: Ponsen en Looien.

Mennen, Ineke. 1999. “Second language acquisition of

intonation: the case of peak alignment.” In Gruber, M.C.,
D. Higgins, K. Olson and T. Wysocki (eds.) Chicago
Linguistics Society 34II: the panels. Chicago: Chicago
Linguistic Society.

Oliver Dominika – Bistra Andreeva. 2005 “Peak alignment

in broad and narrow focus in Polish and Bulgarian. A
cross-language study.” In: Franks, Steven, Frank Y.
Gladrey, Mila Tasseva-Kurktchieva (eds.). Formal
approaches to Slavic linguistics 13, pp. 1-12. The South
Carolina Meeting 2004. Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic
Publications.

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