Sp-ToBI (Spanish Tones and Break Indices)

Created by Julia Tevis McGory and Manuel Diaz-Campos

What is Spanish ToBI?
 
The Spanish ToBI (Tones and Break Indices) labeling scheme, or "Sp-ToBI",  is a set of conventions for  prosodic transcription being developed to describe multiple varieties of Spanish.  At this time, our analysis includes a prelimanary labeling scheme characterizing Venezuelan and Penninuslar Spanish.  It is based on the consensus that emerged from the first Sp-ToBI Workshop, held in October 1999.   This analysis is consistent with the design principles of the ToBI framework.

The purpose of the Spanish ToBI system is to provide a systematic phonological transcription of Spanish prosody which can be used to consistently label speech corpora at different sites.  The Sp-ToBI system is a work in progress.  Eventually, the conventions should be able to accurately differentiate among the contrasting prosodic structures and associated intonational events in spontaneous speech as well as in read lab speech.  We would like there to be some provision for handling differences across varieties, so that eventually the conventions can accurately differentiate among the contrasting prosodic structures and associated intonational events of other varieties besides the two that provided the bulk of examples at the workshop.

Sp-ToBI transcription consists of the speech waveform and F0 contour for the utterance and a set of symbolic labels. The tentative labels are divided into 5 separate label tiers  in which labels of the same type are marked: syllables, words, tones, break indices, and code.  Other optional user-defined tiers can be added, as appropiated for the focus of research at each particular site.

The current label files can be used in xwaves, Praat, PitchWorks, EMU, or any other system that can read xlabel files.

The following sections outline the basics of a Sp-ToBI transcription and give examples of labeled utterances. This is intended to be a preliminary guide to the prosodic labelling of diverse speech data. With such a tool in hand, we will be much more prepared to examine current issues in Spanish prosody.


 

First Sp-ToBI Workshop

Minutes
 

Spanish ToBI Labelling Guidelines

              L* + H
              L + H*
              H + L*
              (H*)
               * Compressed accent
              H%
              M%
              L%
              Downstep
              |  before for L upstepped               0  vowel coalescence, etc.
              1  ordinary interword juncture
              4  intonational phrase


References on Autosegmental/Metrical descriptions of Spanish prosody and intonation
 

This page was last updated on October 13, 1999.