P_ToBI: tools for the transcription of Portuguese prosody

Tonal representation

The P-ToBI inventory contains 5 nuclear pitch accents: L* H+L, H+L, L+H, (L+)H You can click on the representation to view and listen to an annotated example. Both in European and Brazilian Portuguese, no contrast was found between H* and L+H, and thus the representation (L+)H. In the former, the low tone is a sort of optional prefix to the nuclear peak, and thus H* and L+H* function as phonetic variants of the same pitch accent (with no apparent consequences for the pragmatic meaning of the contours). In the latter, the presence of the low prefix prevails suggesting that the Brazilian varieties include a real bitonal pitch accent. On the prenuclear pitch accents: H, H+!H, L+H In BP, prenuclear stressed syllables typically show a rising accent, with a varying phonetic shape that has been described either as L+H or L+H, depending on authors and studies. However, no contrast between different types of prenuclear rising accents has been reported.	Pitch accents
	L*	(L+)H*
	H+L*	H*+L
	L*+H

	(PTDC/CLE-LIN/119787/2010)