1ToBIG and PROLAB Two prosodic transcription systems for German compared

There are at present two symbolic systems that have been developed for the computer compatible transcription of German prosody:- ToBIG [2], a modified version of ToBI [1a,b], which is a consensus system among different German labelling groups using ToBI, and- PROLAB [3], an independently devised notation framework. The latter is the older of the two [4]. It is based on KIM, the Kiel Intonation Model for German [5a,b,c], which in turn has been implemented in the Infovox TTS system for German as a commercial product as well as a research environment for testing the model and its symbolic representation [6a,b,c]. PROLAB has also been applied to the prosodic labelling task taken on by IPDS Kiel within the VERBMOBIL project [7]. A ToBI inventory was first presented for German in 1994, within VERBMOBIL [8], to be used by labellers with an engineering background at Braunschweig University. In parallel other ToBI modifications were proposed in linguistic environments at the Universities of Saarbrücken and Stuttgart [3,9]. As a result of discussions held by the three ToBI groups (Braunschweig, Saarbrücken, Stuttgart) at Stuttgart in February 1995, a unified single ToBIG system emerged [3], which is the basis for this comparison with PROLAB. During a one-day workshop held at IPDS Kiel in April 1995 representatives of the ToBI