Ohio State University
0. Preface
0.1. What are the "Guidelines for ToBI Labelling"?
ToBI (for Tones and Break Indices) is a system for transcribing the intonation patterns and other aspects of the prosody of English utterances. It was devised by a group of speech scientists from various different disciplines (electrical engineering, psychology, linguistics, etc.) who wanted a common standard for transcribing an agreed-upon set of prosodic elements, in order to be able to share prosodically transcribed databases across research sites in the pursuit of diverse research purposes and varied technological goals. Silverman et al. (1992) and Pitrelli et al. (1994) describe the motivation for and development of the ToBI system. If you ask for this handbook in hard copy, those papers will be appended as Appendix B. Appendix A (which is included both in the hard copy and in the ASCII file version of this labelling guide) is "The ToBI Annotation Conventions", the definitive summary statement of the symbols and marks used in ToBI transcriptions, and of the conventions that we have agreed upon for their use. The rest of this labelling guide is a more detailed description of the system, with reference to accompanying utterances of two types: example utterances to illustrate points made in the text and exercise utterances to give labellers practice on the points made in the text. These utterances are set off in the text of the labelling guide using the following typographic conventions.
EXERCISE <<
Each example utterance is also referred to in the text by its basename
within pairs of angle brackets -- e.g., the first example utterance is
<<
The utterances that accompany this labelling guide can be obtained in
two formats: as digitized computer files with electronic record of the
f0 contour from the Ohio State University web and ftp distribution
site (see section 0.2) or as an audio tape with paper record of the f0
contour (see section 0.3).
The "Guidelines for ToBI Labelling" document and associated material
are copyrighted. The text cannot be copied or distributed in any
format unless this paragraph is included. The utterances accompanying
the guide are available to any interested user, but only for
non-commercial use. The National Science Foundation and the Ohio
State University make no warranty and accept no liability associated
with the use of these materials. These materials may be obtained only
as described in Sections 0.2 and 0.3, and are not to be redistributed
by other user sites. Users may not redistribute these materials from
their own sites, but should instead tell interested people how to
obtain their own copy from the distribution site.
The "Guidelines for ToBI Labelling" and the accompanying utterances
were developed in the Ohio State University Linguistics Laboratory
with partial support from the National Science Foundation, and the
Ohio State University continues to support the labelling guide by
providing a distribution site for the electronic records (described in
Section 0.2). Colin Wightman generously provided the distribution
site for the electronic records for version 2.0 of the labelling guide
in his lab at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
Jennifer Venditti provided LaTeXing and various other editing
expertise for this earlier version, which we have relied on in
producing this new one. Kim Silverman and John Pitrelli developed the
original transcriber script, on which we based the primary shell
scripts for viewing the examples and doing the exercises. David
Talkin helped in innumerable ways, such as by developing the scripts
for the cardinal examples. Harald Singer developed an alternative
electronic format for version 2.0, and Stefanie Jannedy set up the web
page for it and for the ftp site.
If you have waves(tm) (an Entropic Research Laboratory product) or a
similar computer display system, obtain the speech files, electronic
record of the f0 contour, and label files by ftp from the Ohio State
University distribution site. Section 0.2.1 describes that version.
There is also an EMU version that Steve Cassidy helped us to create.
You can get that version from the EMU home page at Macquarie at
http://www.shlrc.mq.edu.au/emu/emu-tobi.shtml.
There are two options for obtaining the ToBI materials depending upon
how much disk space users have available. For those with sufficient
disk space there is a single large tarfile for convenience. This
option requires having about 40 MB available during the installation
process; the full materials occupy about 20 MB once the installation
is completed and the tarfile is removed. If you do not have enough
space to have both the complete tarfile and all the installed files at
the same time, use the second option. There are three smaller
tarfiles which together contain all the materials contained in the
single large tarfile. That is, they contain the speech files, f0
records, and label files divided into three parts by order of
occurrence in the Guidelines. In addition to the single large or
three smaller tarfiles, you will need to get the "essentials" tarfile,
which is about 2.5 MB and contains an ASCII version of "The Guidelines
for ToBI Labelling", and the scripts and tools for displaying the f0
tracks and labels.
If you are reading this page over the WWW,
click here to access
the tarfiles. Download the README-file first for descriptions of
the tar files and of the directory structure that they will set up on
your home system.
...
...
If you have comments on this Labelling Guide -- particularly, if you
have suggestions for improvements or better example utterances you
would like to give to us -- we would be very grateful if you would
direct the commments to us at:
e-mail:tobi@ling.ohio-state.edu
other mail:
This e-mail address is also the place to send us your e-mail address
if you want to be added to our list of "subscribers" to be notified of
any future editions of the Labelling Guide.
The ToBI labelling system was originally developed to cover the three
most widely used varieties of spoken English -- namely, general
American, standard Australian, and southern British English. We do
not claim to cover other varieties. Indeed, we have already
determined that ToBI proper does not adequately cover many other
British varieties such as the Glasgow dialect, and modified variants
need to be developed by users who want to use it in transcribing
utterances in these other dialects. By the same token, we must stress
that ToBI was not intended to cover any language other than English,
although we endorse the adoption of the basic principles in developing
transcriptions systems for other languages, particularly languages
that are typologically similar to English. More general comments
about using the ToBI system for other dialects of English or about
adapting ToBI labelling principles to develop comparable systems for
the transcription of other languages may also be addressed to the tobi
e-mail address listed above for forwarding to appropriate interested
members of the larger ToBI group.
EXAMPLE <<
0.1.1. Notice of copyright and restrictions on use
0.1.2. Acknowledgements
0.2. Getting and using the digitized utterances and f0 tracks
0.2.1. Getting the digitized utterances and f0 tracks
0.2.2. A less interactive electronic version that can be used on a Mac
Version 2.0 of the labelling guide has been converted to another
electronic format that can be fetched to a Mac for perusal and
playback. The conversion to this format was done by Harald Singer,
and it is available on the Ohio State University Linguistics
Laboratory web site.
Click here.
0.4. Future editions and a disclaimer
ToBI Labelling Guide, c/o Mary Beckman
Ohio State University, Linguistics Dept.
222 Oxley Hal, 1712 Neil Ave.
Columbus, OH 43210-1298 USA