Mark pauses
Codes for Marking Pauses
Published by Haerim Hwang
marking pauses identifying pasuses praat
6 min READ
This script creates a TextGrid object for a LongSound object and sets boundaries at pauses on the basis of an intensity analysis. The boundaries will be set either in the centre time of a pause or at the beginning and end of pauses. In the latter case you can also give a time margin that will be left around the sound segments. Use a bigger margin if the pause detection does not seem to work accurately. Different amounts of background noise can change the ideal pause detection parameters, and different speakers have different pause duration, so you should also try to modify the pause detection parameters to improve the accuracy.
How to run this script: (1) Open the Praat program (2) Before running the script, you should open a LongSound file (Read menu) and make sure it is selected in the Object window. (3) Choose Open script from the Control menu (4) Look for this text file. (5) Then choose Run from the Run menu of the script window.
This script is distributed under the GNU General Public License (Copyright Mietta Lennes 25.1.2002). Errors in this script have been fixed by Haerim Hwang on 01/03/2020.
Codes
DEFAULT VALUES (initialization of variables)
The name of the selected LongSound object is put to string soundname$
form Pause analysis from LongSound(s) comment Give the time period you wish to include: real Starting_time_(seconds) 0 real Finishing_time_(0=all) 0 comment These criteria define a pause: positive Minimum_duration_(seconds) 0.3 positive Maximum_intensity_(dB) 59 comment Intensity analysis parameters: positive Minimum_pitch_(Hz) 100 integer Time_step_(0=auto) 0 positive Window_size_(seconds) 20 choice Boundary_placement 2 button One boundary at the center of each pause button Two boundaries with a time margin of: positive Margin_(seconds) 0.1 boolean Mark_pause_intervals_with_xxx 1 boolean Mark_utterance_intervals_with_s 0 comment Read in sound files from folder: sentence input_folder /Users/haerimhwang/Desktop/data/ comment Save TextGrid file to folder: text folder /Users/haerimhwang/Desktop/data/ endform Create Strings as file list... list 'input_folder$'*.wav number_files = Get number of strings
Then we set up a “for” loop that will iterate once for every file in the list
Query the file-list to get the first filename from it, then read that file in
for j to number_files select Strings list objects_name$ = Get string... 'j' Open long sound file... 'input_folder$''objects_name$' soundname$ = selected$ ("LongSound") To TextGrid... sentence if fileReadable ("'folder$''soundname$'.TextGrid") pause The file 'folder$''soundname$'.TextGrid already exists. Do you want to overwrite it? endif select TextGrid 'soundname$' endofsound = Get finishing time select LongSound 'soundname$' pausenumber = 0 duration = 0 count = 0 loops = 0 pauses_found = 0 windowstart = 0 windowend = 0 frame = 0 frames = 0 time = 0 intensity = 0 pausedetected = 0 pausestart = 0 pauseend = 0 pausenumber = 0 halfpause = 0 if finishing_time < 0 # this form prompts for parameters for the pause analysis exit Finishing time must be greater than or equal to zero! (If you give a zero, the whole LongSound will be analysed.) endif #if finishing_time = 0 #finishing_time = endofsound #endif #****************************************************************************************************** # BEGIN #****************************************************************************************************** duration = finishing_time - starting_time # DIVIDE LONGSOUND INTO SHORTER PERIODS AND LOOP THROUGH EACH #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- loops = 1 # Default number of loops is 1; but if the period to be analysed is longer than 60 seconds, #it will be divided into 60-second periods for which the analysis is made: if duration > window_size loops = ceiling ((duration/window_size)) endif #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- count = 1 # START LOOPING THROUGH SHORT WINDOWS HERE latest_endboundary = 0 while count <= loops if count = 5 pause Continue? endif # Create a window of the LongSound and extract it for analysis windowstart = starting_time + ((count - 1) * window_size) windowend = starting_time + (count * window_size) if windowend > endofsound windowend = endofsound endif if windowend > finishing_time windowend = finishing_time endif select LongSound 'soundname$' Extract part... windowstart windowend yes windowname$ = "Window_" + "'count'" + "_of_" + "'loops'" echo Analysing Intensity window 'count' of 'loops' if count < 5 printline The script will pause after calculating 4 windows, so you can check the result... endif Rename... 'windowname$' #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Intensity... minimum_pitch time_step # CALCULATE INTENSITY frames = Get number of frames #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- pauseend = 0 # Check the pause criteria frame = 1 #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- while frame <= frames # Loop through all frames in the Intensity object select Intensity 'windowname$' intensity = Get value in frame... frame time = Get time from frame... frame if intensity > maximum_intensity if pausedetected = 1 # If the end of an earlier detected possible pause has been reached if frame - 1 < 1 pauseend = windowstart else pauseend = Get time from frame... (frame - 1) endif pausedetected = 0 endif elsif pausedetected = 0 # If below intensity limit, a possible new pause is started if one hasn't been detected yet pausestart = Get time from frame... frame pauseend = 0 pausedetected = 1 pausenumber = pausenumber + 1 # If a detected pause just continues, do nothing special endif #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- if pauseend > 0 # IF PAUSE CRITERIA ARE FULFILLED, ADD A BOUNDARY OR TWO TO TEXTGRID pauseduration = pauseend - pausestart if pauseduration >= minimum_duration select TextGrid 'soundname$' halfpause = pauseduration / 2 if boundary_placement = 1 boundary = pausestart + halfpause call BoundaryCheck if boundaryexists = 0 Insert boundary... 1 boundary latest_endboundary = boundary endif else boundary = 0 if pauseduration >= (2 * margin) if pausestart > margin boundary = pausestart + margin call BoundaryCheck if boundaryexists = 0 and boundary > latest_endboundary Insert boundary... 1 boundary endif #If the pause overlaps with the preceding pause, do a merge: if boundary = latest_endboundary Remove boundary at time... 1 boundary endif endif if mark_pause_intervals_with_xxx = 1 pauseinterval = Get interval at time... 1 boundary Set interval text... 1 pauseinterval xxx endif boundary = pauseend - margin Insert boundary... 1 boundary if mark_utterance_intervals_with_s = 1 utteranceinterval = Get interval at time... 1 boundary Set interval text... 1 utteranceinterval s endif call BoundaryCheck if boundaryexists = 0 and boundary > latest_endboundary Insert boundary... 1 boundary latest_endboundary = boundary endif else if pauseend < (endofsound - margin) boundary = pausestart + halfpause call BoundaryCheck if boundaryexists = 0 and boundary > latest_endboundary Insert boundary... 1 boundary latest_endboundary = boundary endif endif endif endif pauseend = 0 pauses_found = pauses_found + 1 Write to text file... 'folder$''soundname$'.TextGrid endif endif frame = frame + 1 # When all frames in the intensity analysis have been looked at, end the frame loop. endwhile #-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- select Sound 'windowname$' Remove select Intensity 'windowname$' Remove # END LOOPING THROUGH WINDOWS HERE count = count + 1 endwhile select TextGrid 'soundname$' Write to text file... 'folder$''soundname$'.TextGrid echo Ready! The TextGrid file was saved as 'folder$''soundname$'.TextGrid. #****************************************************************************************************** procedure BoundaryCheck # this procedure checks whether a boundary already exists at a given time (in tier 1) tmpint = Get interval at time... 1 boundary tmpstart = Get starting point... 1 tmpint if tmpstart <> boundary boundaryexists = 0 else boundaryexists = 1 endif endproc endfor # this is the end of the loop select all Remove