Cover not available
Part of
Multimodal Communication from a Construction Grammar Perspective
Edited by Kiki Nikiforidou and Mirjam Fried
[Constructional Approaches to Language 38] 2025
► pp. 116–151

The prosody of list constructions

| Alma Mater Studiorum — University of Bologna
| University of Pavia
| Independent researcher
The paper addresses one of the current hot topics within Construction Grammar, namely the integration of phonetic and phonological features into constructions. More specifically, we investigate some suprasegmental features of list constructions in spontaneous Italian speech, in order to (i) unveil their role and relevance in the identification and interpretation of lists, and (ii) assess which traits might be incorporated into their representation. To this end, we analyze a sample of 92 naturally occurring lists (produced by 53 different speakers), taken from corpora of spoken Italian. We consider only nominal lists, with minimum three conjuncts and no general extenders. Our results show that lists have a recognizable prosodic profile and that some of their morphosyntactic and functional properties match some of the acoustic-prosodic and intonational features considered in our study. First, lists turned out to be characterized by a lower speech/articulation rate with respect to non-listing speech. Second, non-compositional lists, which require a greater processing effort, are slower than more compositional lists. Third, all lists, irrespective of their interpretation, are typically associated with tonal parallelism. These features were therefore incorporated into the list constructional network.
Keywords: lists, list constructions, prosody, intonation, speech rate, Italian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Speech and constructions
  • 2.Why lists?
    • 2.1Lists as constructions
    • 2.2Lists and prosody: An overview
  • 3.Data and methods
    • 3.1Corpora and data processing
    • 3.2Morphosyntactic and semantic annotation
    • 3.3Extraction of phonetic-acoustic features of prosody
    • 3.4Annotation of intonation
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1The acoustic-prosodic profile of lists
    • 4.2The intonation of lists
  • 5.Discussion and repercussions for construction grammar
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (64)
References
Auer, P., & Pfänder, S. (2007). Multiple retractions in spoken French and spoken German. A contrastive study in oral performance styles. Cahiers de Praxématique, 48, 57–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biffi, M., & Setti, R. (2008). Dieci anni di italiano parlato alla radio: corpora LIR 1995/ LIR 2003 a confronto. In M. Pettorino et al. (Eds.), La comunicazione parlata, Atti del Congresso Internazionale Napoli 23–25 February 2006 (pp. 361–398), Naples: Liguori.Google Scholar
Blackmer, E. R., & Mitton, J. L. (1991). Theories of monitoring and the timing of repairs in spontaneous speech. Cognition, 39(3), 173–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blanche-Benveniste, C. (1990). Un modèle d’analyse syntaxique “en grilles” pour les productions orales. Anuario de Psicología, 47, 11–28.Google Scholar
Blanche-Benveniste, C., Borel, B., Deulofeu, J., Durand, J., Giacomi, A., Loufrani, C., Meziane, B., & Pazery, N. (1979). Des grilles pour le français parlé. Recherches sur le français parlé, 2, 163–205.Google Scholar
Boas, H. C. (2013). Cognitive Construction Grammar. In T. Hoffmann, & G. Trousdale (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of Construction Grammar (pp. 233–254). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Boersma, P. (2001). Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer. Glot International, 5(9/10), 341–345.Google Scholar
Boersma, P., & Weenink, D. (2021). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.1.51, retrieved 22 July 2021 from [URL]
Bolinger, D. L. (1989). Intonation and its uses: Melody in grammar and discourse. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bonvino, E., Cortés Velásquez, D., & Fiorenza, E. (2018). “Sopratavola soprammobile come dite voi”: Lists in L1 and L2. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 30(1), 201–230.Google Scholar
Burdin, R. S., & Tyler, J. (2018). Rises inform, and plateaus remind: Exploring the epistemic meanings of “list intonation” in American English. Journal of Pragmatics, 136, 97–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cicchirillo, R., Masini, F., & Mattiola, S. (2021). Costruzioni a lista nell’italiano parlato. Paper presented at the Workshop “La modalità parlata e il suo ruolo nei modelli grammaticali”, LIV Congresso SLI, Florence/Online, 9 September 2021.
Cole, J., Kim, H., Choi, H., & Hasegawa-Johnson, M. (2007). Prosodic effects on acoustic cues to stop voicing and place of articulation: Evidence from Radio News speech. Journal of Phonetics, 35(2), 180–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corbett, G. (2000). Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crocco, C., Gili Fivela, B., & D’Imperio, M. (2022). Comparing prosody of Italian varieties and dialects: Data from Neapolitan. In S. Frota et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Speech Prosody Lisbon 23–26 May 2022 (pp. 140–144). Baixas: ISCA Speech. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crystal, D. (1969). Prosodic systems and intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
De Jong, N., & Wempe, T. (2009). Praat script to detect syllable nuclei and measure speech rate automatically. Behaviour Research Methods, 41(2), 385–390. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, J. W. (2004). Representing discourse. Part 2: Appendices and projects. Linguistics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Enghels, R., & Sansiñena, S. M. (2021). Constructional approach(es) to discourse-level phenomena. Constructions and Frames, 13(1), 3–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fischer, K. (2010). Beyond the sentence. Constructions, frames and spoken interaction. Constructions and Frames, 2(2), 185–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fox, J., & Weisberg, S. (2019). An R companion to applied regression. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Fried, M. (2010). Grammar and interaction. New directions in constructional research. Constructions and Frames, 2(2), 125–133. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fried, M., & Machač, P. (2022). Intonation as a cue to epistemic stance in one type of insubordinate clauses. Folia Linguistica, 56(1), 183–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fried, M., & Östman, J. (2005). Construction Grammar and spoken language: The case of pragmatic particles. Journal of Pragmatics, 37(11), 1752–1778. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gili Fivela, B., Avesani, C., Barone, M., Bocci, G., Crocco, C., D’Imperio, M., Giordano, R., Marotta, G., Savino, M., & Sorianello, P. (2015). Intonational phonology of the regional varieties of Italian. In S. Frota & P. Prieto (Eds.), Intonation in Romance (pp. 140–197). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goria, E., & Masini, F. (2021). Category-building lists between grammar and interaction: A constructionist view. In C. Mauri, E. Goria, & I. Fiorentini (Eds.), Building categories in interaction (pp. 73–110). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gras, P., & Elvira-García, W. (2021). The role of intonation in Construction Grammar: On prosodic constructions. Journal of Pragmatics, 180, 232–247. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hirst, D., & Di Cristo, A. (Eds.). (1998). Intonation systems: A survey of twenty languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hirst, D., & Espesser, R. (1993). Automatic modelling of fundamental frequency using a quadratic spline function. Travaux de l’Institut de Phontique d’Aix, 15, 71–85.Google Scholar
Hirst, D. (2005). Form and function in the representation of speech prosody. In K. Hirose, D. J. Hirst, & Y. Sagisaka (Eds.), Quantitative prosody modeling for natural speech description and generation. Special issue Speech Communication, 46 (3–4), 334–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2007). A Praat plugin for momel and INTSINT with improved algorithms for modelling and coding intonation. 16th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences ICPhS XVI, Aug 2007, Saarbrücken, Germany.
Imo, W. (2015). Interactional Construction Grammar. Linguistics Vanguard, 1(1), 69–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Inbar, A. (2020). List constructions. In R. A. Berman (Ed.), Usage-based studies in modern Hebrew: Background, morpho-lexicon, and syntax (pp. 623–658). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jefferson, G. (1990). List construction as a task and resource. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Interactional competence (pp. 63–92). New York: Irvington Publishers.Google Scholar
(2004). Glosary of transcript symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation Analysis studies from the first generation (pp. 13–31). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kisler, T., Reichel, U., & Schiel, F. (2017). Multilingual processing of speech via web services. Computer Speech & Language, 45, 326–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maraschio, M., Antonini, A., Bellucci, P., Fanfani, M., Stefanelli, S., Avesani, C., & Pratesi, M. (1997). Il progetto LIR. I lessici di frequenza dell’italiano radiofonico. Bollettino d’informazioni, VII(1–2), 53–94.Google Scholar
Masini, F., & Arcodia, G. F. (2018). Listing between lexicon and syntax: Focus on frame-naming lists. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 30(1), 135–172.Google Scholar
Masini, F., & Combei, C. R. (2024). RadioCast-It - Corpus di italiano della radio e dei podcast. In S. Ballarè, I. Fiorentini, & E. Miola (Eds.), Le varietà dell’italiano contemporaneo (pp. 195-196). Rome: Carocci.Google Scholar
Masini, F., Mauri, C., & Pietrandrea, P. (2018). List constructions: Towards a unified account. Italian Journal of Linguistics, 30(1), 49–94.Google Scholar
Matalon, N. (2021). The Camel Humps prosodic pattern: Listing for disaffiliating in Spoken Hebrew. In C. Mauri, E. Goria, & I. Fiorentini (Eds.), Building categories in interaction (pp. 155–186). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mauri, C., Goria, E., & Fiorentini, I. (2019). Non-exhaustive lists in spoken language. Constructions and Frames, 11(2), 290–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mauri, C., & Masini, F. (2022). Diversity, discourse, diachrony: A converging evidence methodology for grammar emergence. In M. Voghera (Ed.), From speaking to grammar (pp. 101–150). Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Mertens, P. (2004). Un outil pour la transcription de la prosodie dans les corpus oraux. Traitement Automatique des langues, 45(2), 109–130.Google Scholar
(2014). Polytonia: A system for the automatic transcription of tonal aspects in speech corpora. Journal of Speech Sciences, 4(2), 17–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2020). The Prosogram model for pitch stylization and its applications in intonation transcription. In J. A. Barnes, & S. Shattuck-Hufnagel (Eds.), Prosodic theory and practice (pp. 259–286). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, E. (1978). Reduplicative constructions. In J. H. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of human language. Vol. 3: Word structure (pp. 297–334). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Muntigl, P. (2004). Modelling multiple semiotic systems: The case of gesture and speech. In E. Ventola et al. (Eds.), Perspectives on multimodality (pp. 31–50). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nikiforidou, K., & Fischer, K. (2015). Introduction. On the interaction of constructions with register and genre. Constructions and Frames, 7(2), 137–147. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Origlia, A., & Alfano, I. (2012). Prosomarker: A prosodic analysis tool based on optimal pitch stylization and automatic syllabification. In N. Calzolari et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Eighth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation — LREC12 (pp. 997–1002). Paris: ELRA.Google Scholar
Östman, J.-O. (2005). Construction Discourse: A prolegomenon. In J.-O. Östman, & M. Fried (Eds.), Construction Grammars. Cognitive grounding and theoretical extensions (pp. 121–144). Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Overstreet, M. (1999). Whales, candlelight, and stuff like that: General extenders in English discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, H. E. (1922). English intonation, with systematic exercises. Cambridge: Heffer.Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2022. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Version 4.2.1, retrieved 22 July 2022 from [URL]
Rodero, E. (2012). A comparative analysis of speech rate and perception in radio bulletins. Text & Talk, 32(3), 391–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schiel, F. (1999). Automatic phonetic transcription of non-prompted speech. In J. J. Ohala (Ed.), Proceedings of the XIVth International Congress of Phonetic Sciences: ICPhS 99 San Francisco 1–7 August 1999 (pp. 607–610). San Francisco: International Phonetic Association.Google Scholar
Selting, M. (2007). Lists as embedded structures and the prosody of list construction as an interactional resource. Journal of Pragmatics, 39(3), 483–526. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sorianello, P. (2006). Prosodia. Modelli e ricerca empirica. Rome: Carocci.Google Scholar
Ward, N. G. (2019). Prosodic patterns in English conversation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ward, N. G., Jodoin, J., Nath, A., & Fuentes, O. (2020). Using prosody to find mentions of urgent problems in radio broadcasts. In N. Minematsu et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Speech Prosody Lisbon 23–28 May 2020 (pp. 660–664). Baixas: ISCA Speech. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wichmann, A. (2000). Intonation in text and discourse: Beginnings, middles and ends. Harlow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Wickham, H. (2016). ggplot2: Elegant graphics for data analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4(43), 1686, 1–6. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zima, E., & Bergs, A. (2017). Multimodality and construction grammar. Linguistics Vanguard, 3(s1), 20161006. DOI logoGoogle Scholar