Relative influences of information structure and utterance-final position on the prosodic implementation of nuclear pitch accents

2019 ◽  
Vol 145 (3) ◽  
pp. 1933-1933
Author(s):  
Eleanor Chodroff ◽  
Jennifer Cole
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Pitch Accents

Focus Attracts Attachment

2021 ◽  
pp. 002383092110333
Author(s):  
Katy Carlson ◽  
David Potter
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Auditory Comprehension ◽  
Perceptual Salience ◽  
Wh Questions ◽  
Prosodic Boundaries ◽  
Sentence Interpretation ◽  
Pitch Accents

There is growing evidence that pitch accents as well as prosodic boundaries can affect syntactic attachment. But is this an effect of their perceptual salience (the Salience Hypothesis), or is it because accents mark the position of focus (the Focus Attraction Hypothesis)? A pair of auditory comprehension experiments shows that focus position, as indicated by preceding wh-questions instead of by pitch accents, affects attachment by drawing the ambiguous phrase to the focus. This supports the Focus Attraction Hypothesis (or a pragmatic version of salience) for both these results and previous results of accents on attachment. These experiments show that information structure, as indicated with prosody or other means, influences sentence interpretation, and suggests a view on which modifiers are drawn to the most important information in a sentence.

scholarly journals The Role of Prosodic Breaks and Pitch Accents in Grouping Words during On-line Sentence Processing

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (9) ◽  
pp. 2447-2467 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Bögels ◽  
Herbert Schriefers ◽  
Wietske Vonk ◽  
Dorothee J. Chwilla
Keyword(s):  
Sentence Processing ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
N400 Effect ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
On Line ◽  
Group Words ◽  
Pitch Accents

The present study addresses the question whether accentuation and prosodic phrasing can have a similar function, namely, to group words in a sentence together. Participants listened to locally ambiguous sentences containing object- and subject-control verbs while ERPs were measured. In Experiment 1, these sentences contained a prosodic break, which can create a certain syntactic grouping of words, or no prosodic break. At the disambiguation, an N400 effect occurred when the disambiguation was in conflict with the syntactic grouping created by the break. We found a similar N400 effect without the break, indicating that the break did not strengthen an already existing preference. This pattern held for both object- and subject-control items. In Experiment 2, the same sentences contained a break and a pitch accent on the noun following the break. We argue that the pitch accent indicates a broad focus covering two words [see Gussenhoven, C. On the limits of focus projection in English. In P. Bosch & R. van der Sandt (Eds.), Focus: Linguistic, cognitive, and computational perspectives. Cambridge: University Press, 1999], thus grouping these words together. For object-control items, this was semantically possible, which led to a “good-enough” interpretation of the sentence. Therefore, both sentences were interpreted equally well and the N400 effect found in Experiment 1 was absent. In contrast, for subject-control items, a corresponding grouping of the words was impossible, both semantically and syntactically, leading to processing difficulty in the form of an N400 effect and a late positivity. In conclusion, accentuation can group words together on the level of information structure, leading to either a semantically “good-enough” interpretation or a processing problem when such a semantic interpretation is not possible.

Idiome und ihre kommunikative Leistung

2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martine Dalmas ◽  
Dmitrij Dobrovol’skij
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Structural Transformations ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
German Syntax

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to analyze the communicative function of idioms and their constituents in the information structure of an utterance. Usually idioms tend to occupy the final position in a sentence, which correlates with their inherent rhematic properties. However, structural transformations such as fronting, passivization and conversion can lead to changes in their communicative status. Among such changes, we single out (a) topicalization or thematization of the fronted sentence constituent, (b) its focusing or emphatic rhematization, (c) focusing of the postponed constituent, or (d) rhematization of the sentence as a whole, etc. In spite of their lexical stability, idioms make use of the possibilities provided by German syntax. This allows them to contribute to the communicative structuring of utterances.

scholarly journals Gesture, Prosody and Information Structure Synchronisation in Turkish

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Olcay Turk
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Natural Speech ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Intonational Phrases ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Gesture Production

<p>This thesis investigates the synchronisation of gesture with prosody and information structure in Turkish. Speech and gesture have a close relationship in human communication, and they are tightly coordinated in production. Research has shown that gestural units are synchronised with prosodic units on a prominence-related micro level (i.e., pitch accents and gesture apexes), however these studies have largely been on a small number of languages of a similar prosodic type, not including Turkish, which has prominence-less prosodic words. It is known that both gesture and speech, through prosody, are hierarchically structured with nested phrasal constituents, but little is known about gesture-prosody synchronisation at this macro level. Even less is known about the timing relationships of gesture with information structure, which is also closely related to prosody. This thesis links gesture to information structure as a part of a three-way synchronisation relationship of gesture, prosody, and information structure.  Four participants were filmed in a narrative task, resulting in three hours of Turkish natural speech and gesture data. Selected sections were annotated for prosody using an adapted scheme for Turkish in the Autosegmental-Metrical framework, for information structure and for gesture. In total, there were over 20,000 annotations.  The synchronisation of gesture and speech units was systematically investigated at (1) the micro level, and (2) the macro level. At the micro level, this thesis asked which tones apexes are synchronised with, and whether this synchronisation depends on other prosodic and gestural features. It was found that gesture apexes were synchronised with pitch accents if there were pitch accents in the relevant prosodic phrases; if not, they were synchronised with low tones that marked the onsets of prosodic words. This synchronisation pattern was largely consistent across different prosodic and gestural contexts, although it was tighter in the nuclear area. These findings confirm prominence as a constraint on synchronisation with evidence of pitch accent-apex synchronisation. The findings also extend our knowledge of the typology of micro-level synchronisation to cases where prominence is locally absent showing that micro-level synchronisation also obeys the prosodic hierarchy.  At the macro level, the aim was to find the prosodic anchor for single gesture phrases while testing for the possible effects of prosodic, gestural and information structural contexts. The findings showed that there was no one-to-one synchronisation of single gesture phrases with single intermediate or intonational phrases. However, it was found that gesture phrases often spanned over multiple consecutive intermediate phrases, and the synchronisation of gesture phrase boundaries was with the boundaries of these intermediate phrase groupings. In addition, these groupings tended to be combinations of pre-nuclear and nuclear intermediate phrases constituting the default focus position in Turkish. This synchronisation behaviour over the focal domain implied that there might be another speech element governing the speech-gesture synchronisation which also informs prosody, i.e. information structure.  Based on this finding and a few other associations in the earlier studies, it was hypothesised that gesture is also informed by and synchronised with information structure. In order to test this hypothesis, it was investigated whether gesture phrases were synchronised with information structural units, i.e., topics, foci and background. The findings showed that gesture phrases tended to accompany discursively prominent foci over topics and background. However, gesture phrases did not show perfect synchronisation with any of these information structure units, although there was a systematic overlap in which foci and topics were contained within the duration of complete gesture phrases. Further investigations revealed that gesture phrase parts that bear apex related meaning provided a much better anchor for the synchronisation of information structure units. The preference for accompanying and synchronisation with the parts of gesture bearing gesturally prominent apical meaning also highlighted that prominence is a driving factor of synchronisation at the macro level as well as at the micro level.  This thesis has revealed pivotal links between gesture, prosody and information structure through a systematic investigation of synchronisation of these structures. The implications of these links have also been discussed within the thesis, and a model of speech and gesture production integrating synchronisation has been proposed. Overall, the thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of speech and gesture production, explaining how these interact during natural speech.</p>

scholarly journals Subjektsegenskaper i förändring: Indefinita subjekt i fornsvenskt lagspråk

2019 ◽  
Vol NF 28 (2018) ◽  
pp. 112-141
Author(s):  
Minna Sandelin
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Subordinate Clauses ◽  
Old Swedish ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Bare Nouns ◽  
The Law

In Old Swedish, the placement of the subject was tied to its function in the information structure of the clause: rhematic subjects, which are semantically indefinite and introduce a new referent to the text, were most often postverbal. The study analyses such subjects in Old Swedish legal language in relation to the order of constituents in the clause, the position of the clause in the text, and the structure of the subject. Three questions are posed: 1. What order of constituents is found in clauses with semantically indefinite subjects? 2. Do these clauses appear in initial, medial, or final position in paragraphs and subparagraphs? 3. What structure does a semantically indefinite subject have? The corpus consists of all main clauses (n=210) and subordinate clauses (n=28) with indefinite subjects in three sections of the Law of Uppland. An indefinite subject seldom (5.2%) appears in the preverbal position in main clauses, while this is common in subordinate clauses (71.4%). In over 93% of main clauses, the subject appears postverbally as the second or third constituent, but placement as the fourth constituent is rare. The main clauses are often verb-initial conditional clauses in which the preverbal position is not a possibility. The clauses tend to appear in initial or medial position in the text, in the introduction to a paragraph or a subparagraph. The subjects are mainly short, bare nouns, but they can also be combined with numerals, pronouns, or relative clauses.

Prosodic Characteristics of Sentences with Communicatively Marked and Communicatively Unmarked Alignment

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 595-608
Author(s):  
Bistra Dimitrova ◽  
◽  
Snezhina Dimitrova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Information Structure ◽  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Prosodic Features ◽  
Pitch Range ◽  
Pitch Accents

The paper presents the results from a study of the interaction between intonation and information structure in SVO and OVS sentences with communicatively (un)marked alignment of information structure elements. We analyzed the prosodic features of pre-nuclear and nuclear pitch accents. The information structure elements were characterized using Steedman’s (2000) model which classifies sentence constituents as belonging to one of the following categories: theme-background, theme-focus, rheme-background and rheme-focus. Our study found that unmarked and marked alignment has no effect on the pitch range of the rheme-focus. In cases of communicatively unmarked alignment, the pitch range of the theme-background (and rheme-background) group in OVS sentences is wider than in SVO sentences. Word order has no effect on the duration of the accented syllable. Topicalized constituents belonging to the theme-background in OVS sentences with unmarked alignment form separate intermediate phrases. In cases of marked alignment, the rheme-focus ends with a phrase accent and sometimes a pause. The rheme-background and rheme-focus always take a pitch accent, whereas the theme-background is marked by a pitch accent only in cases of communicatively unmarked alignment. The theme-background is deaccented when the sentence is communicatively marked.

scholarly journals The prosodic properties of narrow information focus in Central Mexican Spanish: Pitch accents, de-emphasis and phrasing

Loquens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. e069
Author(s):  
Érika Mendoza Vázquez ◽  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo ◽  
Pedro Martín Butragueño
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Primary Factor ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Mexican Spanish ◽  
Properties Of Information ◽  
Information Focus ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Flat Pattern

This paper investigates the different prosodic strategies used for the marking of information focus in Central Mexican Spanish. For this purpose, we carried out a study of the prosodic properties of information focus both in clause final position and in situ. Our results show important differences when compared to other varieties of Spanish. Specifically, we observe that the most frequent accent signaling information focus is a monotonal pitch accent (L* or !H*) and not L+H*. Furthermore, in many cases we observe that the pitch accent is not the only mechanism used to signal the focus: this is because we observe the presence of prosodic edges to the left of the focus, presumably functioning as an additional prosodic cue to identify it. Additionally, while we do not observe deaccenting of post-focal material, we do observe a sequence of non-rising forms (a flat pattern or “de-emphasis”) following the pitch accent that signals an in situ information focus forced by the test. With respect to phonological phrasing, our results confirm the analysis in Prieto (2006), where it is proposed that syntactic constituency is not the primary factor that regulates phrasing in Spanish.

Arabic Intonation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dina El Zarka
Keyword(s):  
Information Structure ◽  
Prosodic Phrasing ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
The West ◽  
Arabic Dialects ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Tertium Comparationis ◽  
The Way

This overview of intonation in Arabic compares the intonational systems of selected Arabic dialects from Morocco in the West to Kuwait in the East. The formal comparison will mainly be carried out within the framework of autosegmental-metrical (AM) theory, taking the phonetic micro-prosody of the identified pitch accents as a tertium comparationis. Furthermore, the intonation systems will be compared with respect to prosodic phrasing. The second part of the overview is devoted to the functions of intonation in Arabic. In this section, the comparison will be based on a wider range of descriptions, including work carried out within other theoretical frameworks. The section will identify the role of metrical and tonal structures and the way they interact with syntax, information structure, and sentence mode in different varieties of Arabic. The concluding section will provide a preliminary typological picture of Arabic prosody with respect to the macro-rhythmic properties of Arabic.

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