(Compiled by Puisan Wong, CUNY, USA)
Editing Vocal Pulses in the Point Process Window
Running the script (Back to top)
1. How do I run the script?
Put
the script file (_ProsodyPro.praat) and the .wav files you want to analyze
in a folder.
Start
the PRAAT program. Click "Praat"
then "Open Praat script" in the
PRAAT object window. Look for the script file (_ProsodyPro.praat) and
click on it. A Script window will
pop up.
Go
to the Script window, under the "Run" menu, click "Run". A Start window will pop up for you to choose the parameters.
Parameter Setting (Back to top)
1. What does "perturbation time" mean?
Perturbation
refers to a brief but extensive F0 raising or lowering by a
prevocalic consonant. If you want to avoid this perturbation effect in your analysis, you can
enter a non-zero value there so that the initial portion of F0 of the
specified duration will be excluded from your subsequent analysis.
2. Should I change the "perturbation time"?
You
should not increase it to more than 30 ms. You can use a smaller number if the
voiced interval to be analyzed is too short, say shorter than or just above 30
ms.
4. What is the function of "get ensemble results"?
After
you have labeled all the .wav files you want to analyze, you may check this box
to put the values (e.g., duration, mean f0) of all the individual .wav files
into single overall spreadsheets (e.g., normf0.txt, samplef0.txt, meanf0.txt,
maxvelocity.txt, duration.txt, and meanintensity.txt).
5. Should I click "apply" or "OK"
Either
one. There is no difference.
6. Can I change the parameter settings (e.g., max f0,
min f0) from file to file, while I am working on the .wav files in the folder?
No.
Praat does not support this. If you want to change the settings, you should
first write down the number of the last file you worked on, stop the script,
and rerun it. You can then skip the ones you have worked on using the previous
settings and work on the one you want to analyze using the new setting.
Editing Vocal Pulses in the Point Process Window
(Back to top)
1. What can I do in the Point Process Window?
Mostly
you inspect the existing vocal pulses generated by Praat to see if there are
apparent problems. If there are, you may insert a point (Ctrl P) where a vocal
pulse is missing and delete any (Ctrl-Alt P) that do not belong there.
2. Should I care about the pulses in the spectrogram
window in the TextGrid window, when I am editing the vocal pulses?
No.
Ignore the pulses in the spectrogram window. You can even turn it off to make
display faster. The script is totally unrelated to those pulses and PRAAT does
not allow users or scripts to change anything there.
Labeling Intervals and Points (Back to top)
1. Where do we label intervals and points?
In
the Textgrid window.
2. What happen if I do not label any intervals?
If
you do not name any interval, the program will ignore that interval and will
not generate any data for that interval.
3. What is the purpose of marking the intervals?
We
mark and label the intervals to indicate to the program which sections of the
stimuli we want to be included in the analysis. In other words, the interval
tier is for us to divide the stimuli into the desired number of sections for
independent normalization.
4. Does it matter what labels I give to the intervals?
No.
You can give any names to the intervals. The program only cares about whether
an interval is named or totally blank. If it is named, the program will obtain
data for the interval. If it is blank, the program will ignore that interval
and will do nothing with it.
5. How do I give the label for the interval?
Select
the interval and then type the label in the field in the upper part of the
window.
6. How do I mark the intervals?
Place
the cursor at the point you want to mark or remove a boundary. You could double
click on the upper circles or go to "Boundary" in the menu and choose the appropriate functions.
7. Do I have to worry about the length of each interval?
Yes.
Each interval, excluding the perturbation time caused by plosives and
fricatives, etc., should not be shorter than the default value (i.e., 30 ms).
8. Does it matter what we do in the point tier of the TextGrid window?
No.
The script does not look at the point tier. It is for your own record. You can
put whatever notes there as you please.
9. Should I include or exclude the silent or voiceless
periods?
This
depends on your purpose. However, because the script does not do voicing check
as PraatÕs own f0 function does, if voiceless regions are included, the script
will just smooth things over. Therefore, it is better not to include any
pulseless regions.
1. After working on the files, if I want to change the
global settings such as "perturbation in ms", what should I do?
You
can set the new parameter, check the "Process all sounds without pause" button, and run
the script over all the sound files in the folder again. This way, the script
will process all the files without stopping.
2. After I have worked on the files, I want to make
changes in the text grid window (e.g., change the intervals) for some files, do
I need to redo all the files in the folder from scratch?
No,
you can change the number in the Pause window to the number of the file you want to
modify minus one and then press "Continue", do the changes you want, and then hit
"Continue" again to save all the new measurements. The new file will be saved over the old file.
3. After I have worked on the files, I want to make
changes in the PointProcess window (e.g., changing the vocal pulses), what
should I do?
Because
once the pulse files are saved, the script always opens them without generating
new ones, if you need to redo a file because the pulses are really messy with the
previous setting, you need to first find the corresponding .pulse file and
delete it. Then you run the script again, go to the file and make the necessary
changes.
4. If I just want to take a look at the files and don't
want to change any saved data, what should I do?
You
just uncheck the "Save output files" box in the "start" window, where you set
the parameters.
5. After I make any changes, do I need to rerun all the
files to get the data in the ensemble files?
Yes.
If you don't, the new ensemble files will exclude all the results before the
starting files.
The Output files (Back to top)
1. I see "????" in the first column under the "row
label". Is there a problem?
No.
Just ignore it.
2. What information is included in the .f0 files?
The
file will keep the original time so that users can compare the data with the
sound file directly. You can easily get what you want in Excel by subtracting
all the time values by the very first time value.
3. What are the PitchTier files?
You
don't usually need to look at these files. But when you do need to see the f0
track obtained by the script in PRAAT, you can open this file together with the
sound file corresponding to it.
4. What information do .timenormf0 files contain?
They
contain the f0 for the normalized points in each labeled interval.
5. What do the ensemble files (e.g., duration.txt,
maxvelocity.txt, meanintensity.txt, meanf0.txt, normf0.txt) contain?
They
contain the data from all the individual files, arranged in rows.