Pitch accents and boundary tones in narrow focus statements in Basque Spanish

2021 ◽  
Vol 150 (4) ◽  
pp. A72-A72
Author(s):  
Nerea Delgado Fernandez ◽  
Carolina González ◽  
Lara Reglero
Keyword(s):  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Pitch Accents

scholarly journals Non-Final Focus Accents in The Speech of Advanced Italian Learners of German

2015 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Paschke ◽  
Barbara Vogt
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Reading Aloud ◽  
Prosodic Structure ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Correct Placement ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Focus Condition ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

This study investigates the prosodic marking of focus in non-native German. Ten proficient learners of German with Italian L1 were recorded reading aloud 40 sentences containing mostly non-final focused constituents embedded in an adequate question context. Non-final focus accents in L2 German are difficult for Italian learners to produce, especially in broad focus contexts with de-accentuation of final verb forms (cf. Paschke/Vogt, in press), because their native language has a strong positional requirement of rightmostness. Given that both German and Italian use pitch accents for information structuring, i. e. to highlight important information, a correct placement of focus accents might, however, be favoured by narrow focus contexts in which prosodic prominence has to be assigned to one specific constituent. In addition to this main hypothesis, the study investigated whether additional clues (such as prosodic highlighting of the relevant constituent in the L2 question, a corresponding syntactic and prosodic structure between L1 and L2) might increase the success rate. The data shows that advanced Italian speakers of German L2 correctly realize non-final focus accents in more than half of the narrow focus contexts, but that their success rate is not significantly higher than in the broad focus condition and is not affected by the additional clues provided.

scholarly journals An intonational grammar for Icelandic

2009 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dehé
Keyword(s):  
Pitch Accent ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Intonational Phrases ◽  
Pitch Accents

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on the tonal grammar of Icelandic and to complement the tone inventory as previously described in the literature (Árnason 1998). Specifically, types of pitch accents and edge tones and their combinations in neutral declaratives and questions, and in utterances containing narrow focus are addressed. Two pitch accent types (H* and L*) and two edge tones (H- and L-) are identified, for which evidence has not been found in previous research. Moreover, the paper shows for declaratives, that along with downstep, Icelandic has upstep across Intonational Phrases. Upstep applies to a series of pitch peaks. It may occur in neutral declaratives and in utterances with final narrow focus. Overall, the results of this study provide a substantial addition to our knowledge of Icelandic intonational phonology.

scholarly journals The prosody of focus projection: word stress and F0 patterns in Georgian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Borise
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Evidence ◽  
Direct Object ◽  
Focus Position ◽  
Stressed Syllable ◽  
Word Stress ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Focus Projection

Based on experimental evidence, this paper shows that focus projection/percolation – the phenomenon by way of which prosodic prominence on a sub-constituent signals focus on the whole constituent – has a consistent prosodic realization in Georgian. The novelty of these findings lies in two properties of Georgian that have not been explored from the perspective of focus projection: it is a language with a dedicated focus position (linearly immediately preverbal) and one that does not rely on pitch accents in the expression of phrasal prosody (Skopeteas & Féry 2010; 2016). According to focus projection accounts (Selkirk 1984; Cinque 1993; Ladd 1996; Zubizarreta 1998, a. o.), utterances with narrow focus on the direct object are realized in the same way as broad focus utterances, since in all three cases prosodic prominence is realized on the direct object. In contrast, in utterances with narrow focus on the subject, the subject is the most prosodically prominent element, which means that the whole utterance has a different prosodic realization from that of broad focus contexts. This paper shows that the distribution of prosodic prominence in object- and subject-focus contexts in Georgian fits with this generalization. Specifically, the realization of utterances with narrowly focused objects does not differ from broad focus contexts in their F0 patterns and prominence of the stressed syllable, while narrowly focused subjects differ from subjects in broad focus utterances in both of these parameters.

scholarly journals The nature and use of Icelandic prenuclear and nuclear pitch accents: Evidence from F0 alignment and syllable/segment duration

2010 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Dehé
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Effect ◽  
Final Position ◽  
Production Studies ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
Focus Effect ◽  
Prosodic Boundary ◽  
Early Rise ◽  
Pitch Accents ◽  
Segment Duration

Two production studies and one perception study were designed to systematically test F0 alignment and segment duration in Icelandic pitch accents with a view to investigating previous claims about the inventory of distinct intonational categories. Four different conditions were tested: (i) prenuclear pitch accents, (ii) nuclear accents in sentence-final position in sentences with either broad focus or (iii) with final narrow focus, and (iv) nuclear narrow focus accents in non-final position. The alignment results are such that (i) prenuclear accents are signalled by a late rise (L*H), while final nuclear accents are signalled by an early rise; (ii) F0 peaks in prefinal nuclear accents are aligned earlier than in prenuclear accents, but later than in final nuclear accents, suggesting a prosodic boundary effect. The duration measurements suggest a positional, but no focus, effect on the duration of the accented syllable and its vowel, such that syllables/vowels earlier in the sentence are longer than later ones.

Speaker-specific intonational marking of narrow focus in Egyptian Arabic

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Cangemi ◽  
Dina El Zarka ◽  
Simon Wehrle ◽  
Stefan Baumann ◽  
Martine Grice
Keyword(s):  
Egyptian Arabic ◽  
Narrow Focus

scholarly journals Reframing ‘integration’: acknowledging and addressing five core critiques

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Spencer ◽  
Katharine Charsley
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Heuristic Model ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
Methodological Nationalism ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractEmpirical and theoretical insights from the rich body of research on ‘integration’ in migration studies have led to increasing recognition of its complexity. Among European scholars, however, there remains no consensus on how integration should be defined nor what the processes entail. Integration has, moreover, been the subject of powerful academic critiques, some decrying any further use of the concept. In this paper we argue that it is both necessary and possible to address each of the five core critiques on which recent criticism has focused: normativity; negative objectification of migrants as ‘other’; outdated imaginary of society; methodological nationalism; and a narrow focus on migrants in the factors shaping integration processes. We provide a definition of integration, and a revised heuristic model of integration processes and the ‘effectors’ that have been shown to shape them, as a contribution to a constructive debate on the ways in which these challenges for empirical research can be overcome.

scholarly journals USING PROSODY TO PREDICT UPCOMING REFERENTS IN THE L1 AND THE L2

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Anouschka Foltz
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
Exposure Period ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
Prosodic Cues ◽  
Resource Deficit ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Pitch Accents

Abstract While monolingual speakers can use contrastive pitch accents to predict upcoming referents, bilingual speakers do not always use this cue predictively in their L2. The current study examines the role of recent exposure for predictive processing in native German (L1) second language learners of English (L2). In Experiment 1, participants followed instructions to click on two successive objects, for example, Click on the red carrot/duck. Click on the green/GREEN carrot (where CAPS indicate a contrastive L + H* accent). Participants predicted a repeated noun following a L + H* accent in the L1, but not in the L2, where processing was delayed. Experiment 2 shows that after an exposure period with highly consistent prosodic cues, bilinguals engaged in predictive processing in both their L1 and L2. However, inconsistent prosodic cues showed different effects on bilinguals’ L1 and L2 predictive processing. The results are discussed in terms of exposure-based and resource-deficit models of processing.

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