Session Prosody VI:Prosody VI: Information Structure
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| Prosody VI-1 |
On the universality of prosodic reflexes of contrast: The case of Yucatec Maya
Frank Kügler, Institut für Linguistik, Universität Potsdam Stavros Skopeteas, Institut für Linguistik, Universität Potsdam Paper File |
| This paper is about the prosodic realization of contrastive focus in Yucatec Maya. Examining sentences with in situ focused adjectives (postverbally) we observe neither durational differences as compared to non-contrastive sentences nor any differences in F0. Yucatec Maya being a tone language seems use prosodic means exclusively to express tonal contrasts, thus belonging to a language type without marking contrast prosodically. | |
| Prosody VI-2 |
Tonal and Articulatory Marking of Focus in German
Stefan Baumann, IfL Phonetik, University of Cologne Johannes Becker, IfL Phonetik, University of Cologne Martine Grice, IfL Phonetik, University of Cologne Doris Mücke, IfL Phonetik, University of Cologne Paper File |
| A production study on read German speech shows an increase in prominence-lending parameters as the focus domain is narrowed, or when contrast is expressed over non-contrast. Prominence-lending parameters included tonal and durational cues (e.g. nuclear pitch accent type and scaling, duration of segments and syllables) as well as those generally considered to be in the segmental domain (e.g. formant values of vowels in nuclear syllables). These cues are exploited by different speakers to different degrees and in different combinations, but are all used for signalling aspects of focus. | |
| Prosody VI-3 |
EFFECTS OF TONAL CONTEXT AND FOCUS ON CANTONESE F0
Wentao Gu, Dept. of Electronic Engineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Tan Lee, Dept. of Electronic Engineering, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Paper File |
| F0 variations of tone languages are not only constrained by individual lexical tones but also affected by various contextual factors. In this work the effects of two factors, i.e. tonal context and focal emphasis, on F0 contours of Cantonese are investigated by a controlled experiment. All the four combinations of carryover/anticipatory and assimilatory/dissimilatory effects by adjacent tones are observed, with different magnitudes and domains. The effect of focus is not local but shows a similar nature in pre-focus, on-focus, and post-focus domains, with both raised F0 values and expanded F0 ranges. The interactions between the two factors are also analyzed. | |