Earlier or Higher? Comparing French rising-falling contour with rising contour in a corpus of conversation

- We compared the phonetic realizations and meanings of the French rise-fall and rise.
- We compared f0 curves using a wavelet-based functional mixed model.
- They differ with respect to the timing of the rise and the amplitude of the fall.
- Conversely, the scaling of the pitch peak is not relevant for this contrast.
- Naïve listeners interpreted the rise-fall as conveying conviction and obviousness.

In French intonation, a rising-falling contour (RF) has been described by many authors, but the characteristics of its phonetic realization as well at its phonological status remain controversial. Is its f0 movement temporally aligned earlier compared to the f0 movement of the simple rise (R)? Or is it scaled higher in the speaker's pitch range? Does it convey conviction and obviousness while the simple rise rather announces that the speaker has more to say? Firstly, the present study compared the phonetic implementation of RF and R in a corpus of naturally occurring conversation. Through the application of a wavelet-based functional mixed model, we could detect significant differences between the shapes of the f0 curves corresponding to RF and R contours. Results show that RF and R mainly differ with respect to the timing of the rise and the amplitude of the falling part. They thus support the claim that these characteristics are more important than the scaling of the pitch peak for the implementation of the contrast between RF and R. Secondly, the results of a forced choice identification task performed by naïve listeners show that they consistently associate the RF contour with the expression of conviction and obviousness and the R contour with the indication that the speaker has more to say.